Former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s public movement, Open Russia, is holding protests across the country on Saturday, despite being blacklisted as an “undesirable” group by the Russian authorities.
29 April 2017
About 150 people attempted to participate in an unsanctioned demonstration outside a metro station in northern St. Petersburg, local authorities have reported. After repeated police warnings some dispersed voluntarily, but about 100 people stayed, police said in a statement. It added that police were forced to “put an end to the illegal gathering.” Ruptly video footage shows that multiple attendees were detained.
About 60 people gathered for a demonstration in the city of Krasnodar in southern Russia, a local branch of Interior Ministry said, as cited by Interfax.
“The event was peaceful; there have been no violations of public order,” an official from the ministry said.
A protest also took place in Siberia in the city of Tomsk.
Some 80 people took part in an Open Russia rally in the Urals’ city of Ufa, an official from the local branch of Interior Ministry told Interfax.
Open Russia activists in the Urals also joined a rally in the city of Ekaterinburg.
Some 250 people gathered for Open Russia’s unauthorized rally in Moscow, the Russian Interior Ministry’s press service reported.
“This public event is being held in violation of Federal Law number 54, as it wasn’t agreed to with St. Petersburg’s authorities,” a police officer was repeatedly heard telling protesters in St. Petersburg via loudspeakers.
A rally organized by Open Russia was held in the city of Cheboksary in the southeastern part of European Russia.
An official from a local branch of the Interior Ministry told Interfax that some 40 people took part in the rally.
Another rally organized by Open Russia was held in the city of Cheboksary in the southeastern part of European Russia.
Open Russia activists have gathered in Russia’s westernmost enclave, Kaliningrad.
Open Russia activists in the city of Nizhny Novgorod have brought letters for Vladimir Putin to the local government administration.
This video appears to show people being detained during the protest in St. Petersburg.
People are bringing letters for Vladimir Putin to the Presidential Directorate for Correspondence from Citizens and Organizations, according to photos on social media.
Police cordons and fences are in place in the center of Moscow to keep protesters away from traffic and funnel them towards the presidential administration building, where they are taking their letters of protest.
Protesters gathered in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia with posters showing photos of Russian politicians and the word ‘Enough’, (‘надоел’ in Russian).
The Open Russia protests were organized under slogan ‘Enough’, or ‘надоел’ in Russian, which can also be translated as ‘fed up’.
Police in St. Petersburg have cordoned off several dozen protesters and started detaining them, an RIA Novosti correspondent on the scene said. There has been no official confirmation from police so far.
Protesters have gathered in the city of Vladimir, 176km east of Moscow.
Moscow’s authorities have permitted Open Russia to hold a rally in one location in the Russian capital, on Akademika Sakharova Avenue.
However, the representatives of the group refused the proposed route, saying they were planning to protest on other streets.
The authorities responded by saying that no other routes would receive official authorization.
Open Russia says that “thousands of people” are to take part in the rallies. The demonstrators are to protest Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to run for re-election in 2018.
Open Russia says protests have been planned in Moscow, St. Petersburg and 30 other Russian cities.
Open Russia was founded by Khodorkovsky and his close allies in 2001. The organization oversaw many projects all over Russia, but after the dissolution of oil giant YUKOS, it was deprived of funds and practically ceased to exist. When Khodorkovsky was released from prison in December of 2013, Open Russia was relaunched as a network with a self-declared goal of assisting the “Europe-oriented part of the Russian society.”
On Wednesday, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office put the group on the list of undesirable foreign organizations.
“Their activities are aimed at inciting protests and destabilizing [Russia’s] domestic political situation, presenting a threat to the constitutional foundations of the Russian Federation and the security of the state,” the prosecutor general said in a statement.
Open Russia has confirmed that it is still planning the protests, despite the decision.