Anti-war protests across Russia, More than 4300 arrested: Report
New Delhi: The Independent monitoring group of Russia on March 7, reported that more than 4,300 people have been arrested after demonstrators took to the streets in 21 Russian cities to condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, while protesters in Kazakhstan have followed suit, turning out in large numbers to chant ‘No to war’
The independent monitoring group OVD-Info – which has already logged more than 7,500 anti-war protest arrests – said it had documented the detentions of at least 4,366 people in 53 cities including Vladivostok and Irkutsk. Opposition activists also posted videos showing protests in other cities.
Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info’s spokesperson said “The screws are being fully tightened – essentially we are witnessing military censorship. We are seeing rather big protests today, even in Siberian cities where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.”
Russia’s interior ministry said earlier that police had detained about 3,500 people, including 1,700 in Moscow, 750 in St Petersburg, and 1,061 in other cities.
The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called for protest across Russia and the rest of the world after the Russian invasion, which began on 24 February. But Russia’s interior ministry warned on Saturday that any attempt to hold unauthorized protests would be prevented and the organizers held to account.
(_Vinayak)
