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Police arrest a man during a protest against the detention of opposition activist Alexei Navalny in Khabarovsk
Photo: Igor Volkov / dpa
Russian police arrested dozens of demonstrators who took to the streets for the release of the imprisoned opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
As the civil rights organization Ovd-Info announced, the security forces have so far taken over 230 people in custody in 25 cities.
Navalny called for the protests after his arrest on Monday.
In the Far East, the first demonstrations took place on Saturday: Thousands of people took to the streets in the cities of Khabarov, Chita and Vladivostok.
In Vladivostok, officers from the special police used batons.
From the city of Khabarovsk, which is seven hours ahead of the capital Moscow due to the time difference, activists published videos on Saturday of police officers beating demonstrators and putting them in prisoner trucks.
In Khabarovsk, people's discontent is also directed against the summer's imprisonment of a popular ex-governor.
Hundreds of demonstrators also gathered in the cities of Vladivostok and Irkutsk, despite freezing temperatures.
They chanted "We are the power" and "Putin is a liar".
In Omsk, thousands roamed the city.
There are also reports from Moscow of the first arrests long before the announced demonstration began.
At 2 p.m. local time, 12 p.m. German time, Navalny's supporters wanted to meet at the centrally located Pushkin Square and move from there to the Kremlin.
Navalny's wife Julija also announced her participation in the demonstration.
The place has now been cordoned off.
Access to Red Square has also been blocked.
Navalny's supporters have called for protests in more than 90 Russian cities this Saturday.
The authorities are threatening heavy penalties for participating in the unauthorized rallies.
In Russia, authorities very rarely approve opposition rallies.
In the past few days, numerous supporters of the opposition politician had been arrested across the country, including his press spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch.
She was sentenced to nine days in prison.
At the beginning of the week, Navalny's team published an unveiling video entitled "A Palace for Putin", which is supposed to prove that the president had a huge property built on the Black Sea from bribes.
The Kremlin describes the allegations as "nonsense" and "lies".
The film has been viewed 65 million times so far.
Navalny was arrested in Moscow last Sunday immediately after his return from Germany.
The next day he was sentenced to 30 days in prison in a controversial urgent procedure.
The 44-year-old is said to have violated reporting requirements in previous criminal proceedings while he was recovering from a poison attack in Germany.
He faces further trials and many years in prison.
According to laboratory results in Germany, France and Sweden, which the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed, Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group.
According to research by SPIEGEL, Bellingcat and other partners, at least eight agents from the Russian secret service FSB were apparently involved in the attack on Navalny.
They probably haunted him for years.
Navalny also believes in a "killer squad" operated by the FSB domestic intelligence service under Vladimir Putin's orders.
Putin and the FSB deny the allegations.
After his arrest, Navalny called for nationwide protests for his release.
The police announced a crackdown on the protest participants.
There had already been several arrests in Nawalny's environment.
The Russian Investigation Committee said on Friday that it had opened an investigation into calling for unauthorized protests.
Navalny's close ally Leonid Volkov told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that street protests were "the only way in Russia to get someone out of prison."
It has also happened that Russian opposition activists have been poisoned twice in a row.
Therefore, "the only protection" for Navalny is "maximum visibility and support in the population."
Navalny himself, however, spoke up from prison: he was mentally stable and had no intention of killing himself.
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Löw / heb / dpa / AFP
