Eight detained in Moscow

On Friday, while the daily picket in support of political prisoners was taking place, police detained eight participants of a picket in the centre of Moscow in support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Talking live on radio station Echo Moskvy Mikhail Kriger, head of the Committee for Anti-military Actions, said the arrests took place 20 minutes after the protest began. The police “did not like something in the application to hold the protest”. The letter in response from the prefecture, said Kriger, informed the organisers that the petition they intended to draw up was “apparently not envisaged”.

On Friday evening the Moscow police information department told Interfax that “The event had not been approved and so it was dispersed”. Those detained are presently being held at the Tverskoe police station. The press department for the Moscow city police expect that they will soon be charged and fined for holding an unsanctioned rally.

(Echo Moskvy, Interfax, 07.06.2008)