Leftist leader Udaltsov: Four detained near Investigative Committee office
MOSCOW. June 16 (Interfax) - Four opposition activists have been detained near the Investigative Committee office in Moscow for picketing it, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov said.
"We deployed solitary pickets near the Investigative Committee office on Tekhnichesky Street today to protest repressions against opposition activists," Udaltsov told Interfax on Saturday.
Soon after the pickets were posted, special police units arrived and detained four activists, he said.
Interfax could not immediately obtain official comments from the city police on this score.
Meanwhile, State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov of the party A Just Russia and prominent journalist Olga Romanova appeared at the scene near the Investigative Committee office.
"We are standing at a streetcar stop. It is not forbidden to stop here. We are not breaking the law," Ponomaryov told journalists.
About ten police vans have been parked on the roadsides and in a nearby park close to the Investigative Committee building. Police are warning the activists through loudspeakers from time to time that they cannot gather at this place and are urging them to disperse.
An Interfax correspondent reported earlier that police had started detaining opposition activists trying to gather for a protest demonstration near the Investigative Committee office.
Several people with white ribbons and Left Front badges pinned to their clothes and about a couple of dozens of journalists and bloggers gathered between a streetcar stop and the Investigative Committee lobby on Baumanskaya Street.
Police first warned the demonstrators that the gathering would be curbed if the activists obstruct passage and urged them to proceed toward the nearby metro station, but not all of them complied, after which several activists were escorted to police vans.