MOSCOW, April 6 (RIA Novosti) – Some 600 people gathered on Saturday for a rally in central Moscow in support of those arrested over last year’s clashes on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, a police spokesman said.
Members of various opposition movements, including the Left Front, Solidarity and the December 5 Party took part in the sanctioned rally in Moscow’s Novopushkinsky public garden. Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov put the figure at 1,500 people.
Police said more than 100 journalists and bloggers attended the event.
The activists were holding posters with the portraits of those detained over the May 6 riots on Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow, which sparked clashes between the opposition and police ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration.
Those events have led to the so-called “Bolotnaya case,” in which more than a dozen defendants face charges ranging from inciting mass unrest to using violent force against law enforcement officials.
Another 150 people attended a parallel rally in St. Petersburg on Saturday in support of the May 6 defendants, police said. The rally ended peacefully, a spokesman said.