Moscow • Police cracked down hard on an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow for a second weekend in a row, detaining about 600 people protesting the exclusion of some independent and opposition candidates from September city council elections.
The issue taps growing dissatisfaction with a political environment dominated by the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party, in which dissenting voices are marginalized, ignored or repressed.
An arrest-monitoring group, OVD-Info, said 685 people were detained Saturday. The Russian Interior Ministry said the number was about 600.
Lyubov Sobol, one of the excluded candidates and a driving figure of the current wave of protests, was among those detained.