Russian police detained at least 500 political protestors calling for fair elections
- At least 500 people were reportedly detained by Russian police Saturday as authorities struck back at a political protest.
- Moscow authorities jailed opposition figures and warned protestors that a demonstration would be illegal ahead of the protests.
- But authorities' indifference to protestors' push for opposition candidates to stand in local elections this fall sparked the second violent clash in a week.
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Russian police reportedly detained at least 500 people Saturday in a harsh response to a protest that Moscow authorities had ruled illegal in an effort to quash opposition political candidates.
The Associated Press reported that authorities arrested 520 people after they had warned protestors ahead of time against demonstrating over the exclusion of many opposition candidates from upcoming local elections.
Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called for the protest near the Moscow mayor's office to pressure authorities to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a Sept. 8 local vote in Moscow, which they have been barred from, according to the Moscow Times.
Some of the barred prospective candidates were detained ahead of the protest and about 30 people were barred from the September elections saying they had failed to collect enough valid signatures to be included.
As the protests raged on, police attempted to fully block Moscow's City Hall before some groups of protestors broke through to block traffic on some of the city's largest streets, according to Moscow Times reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reportedly warned on social media beforehand that the authorities wouldn't hold back in disciplining demonstrators.
"According to information from law enforcement authorities, serious provocations are being prepared which pose a threat to the safety, lives, and health of people," Sobyanin had said in a statement reported by Reuters. "Attempts at ultimatums, disorder will not lead to anything good. Order in the city will be maintained."
This is the second such protest after more than 20,000 Russians demonstrated on July 20 in the name of fair elections. Dozens were arrested.
Ella Pamfilova, the head of the electoral commission, dismissed the protests as "political," and said they would have no effect on the elections.
"It doesn't matter, not even a bit of it," she said, according to the BBC.
However, tempers have continued to flare as some candidates were targeted with home searches. One such incident was captured in a video posted to social media that shows Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer at Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation being carried out of the electoral commission on a sofa.
According to Google Translate, the caption on the video says "carried on the couch."