Police Arrest 30 Protesters at Barrikadnaya Camp

Police Arrest 30 Protesters at Barrikadnaya Camp

Published: May 17, 2012 (Issue # 1708)

At the protest camp near Barrikadnaya metro station late Wednesday, police detained around 30 demonstrators for offenses that included slashing the tires of a police vehicle.

Around 1,000 people gathered Wednesday evening on Kudrinskaya Ploshchad, where opposition protesters migrated Wednesday morning after being driven from their weeklong camp site on Chistoprudny Bulvar, Interfax reported. Opposition parliamentarians Ilya Ponomaryov and Dmitry Gudkov of the Just Russia party were present, as well as television personality Kseniya Sobchak and a “sizable” group of police officers.

Around 30 protesters were arrested at some point in the evening, a law enforcement source told Interfax.

Municipal deputies of the Presnensky district, which includes Kudrinskaya Ploshchad, are planning to meet Thursday to give the opposition camp the official status of a “festival,” which could prevent police from breaking it up, Kommersant reported Thursday, citing Presnensky district deputy Yelena Tkach.

Moscow’s head of regional security Alexei Maiorov told the daily that the deputies were authorized to approve cultural events in their districts but would have to “present the program of events and prove that it corresponds to the district’s development goals.”

Around 40 demonstrators slept in the square overnight Wednesday to Thursday, Kommersant-FM reporter Uliana Malashenko wrote on Twitter early Thursday. She wrote that there are several police vans on the square but that the atmosphere was “calm.” Some people were drinking coffee, some people were asleep on benches, and one elderly man was playing a fife, Malashenko wrote.

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