Russian police have detained hundreds of people attending a protest in the country’s capital, Moscow, to demand free elections, according to a monitoring group.
Phalanxes of helmeted riot police linked arms and swept people away on Saturday as activists gathered on Pushkin Square to rally against the exclusion of independent and opposition candidates from the Moscow city council election.
The crowds were pushed to Trubnaya Square were the police continued the crackdown.
At least 592 people were detained by police. At a similar protest last week, police arrested at least 1,400 people, beating some people with truncheons.
Lyubov Sobol, currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the local polls, was dragged from a taxi and detained Saturday as she set off for the rally.
