938

According to OVD Info, as of 9:00 p.m. Moscow Time today, July 27, 2019, 938 people had been detained in Moscow for taking part in an “unauthorized” grassroots protest against the disqualification of independent candidates who had registered to stand in the September 8, 2019, election to the Moscow City Duma.

Opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who called for this protest at last week’s “authorized” rally, which drew over 22,000 people, was arrested and sentenced to thirty days in jail earlier in the week. Several of the disqualified candidates and people associated with the opposition had their homes searched by police this past week as well. Several of them were also summoned for questioning to the Moscow office of the Russian Investigative Committee, which announced it had launched a criminal investigation of the opposition protests under Article 141 of the Russian Criminal Code, which criminalizes the “obstruction of voting rights or the work of electoral commissions.”