MOSCOW, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - Writer and radical protest leader Eduard Limonov was detained along with several other demonstrators on Sunday at a traditional Strategy-31 protest rally that has now ended in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square.
The unsanctioned rally that started at around 6:00 p.m. Moscow time (15:00 GMT) gathered several dozen protesters and dozens of correspondents and bloggers.
Firebrand writer and politician Limonov, who also heads the unregistered Other Russia party, was detained by police soon after he arrived at the square.
Police are now taking down their cordons and leaving the square.
Another 10 people were detained in St. Petersburg for attempting to hold a parallel unsanctioned rally there, a local police spokesman said.
Russian opposition groups rally on the last day of each month that has 31 days in defense of their right to freedom of assembly, as enshrined in Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.
They had filed an application to hold a sanctioned meeting, but Moscow City Hall rejected their request citing legal violations committed by the applicants at previous unsanctioned rallies.
A law governing protests, approved by President Vladimir Putin last summer, bars anyone guilty of infringements at public events from organizing rallies.
