Elkhan Mirzoev was arrested during a Day of Anger protest on April 10 in Moscow. Police say the journalist threw himself on them repeatedly in an attempt to break through their barrier. In court on Tuesday, witnesses testified that this was untrue, and Mirzoev himself said he is a journalist and was arrested while carrying out his duties.

Mirzoev’s lawyers originally attempted to reschedule the proceedings on the basis that the materials in the case had been drawn up in an extremely careless fashion. However, On April 12, Tverskoy Regional Court Justice Borovkova dismissed the motion, saying that “consideration of the case has already begun.”

In the end, the judge sentenced him to four days of administrative arrest.

Mirzoev maintains his innocence and therefore plans to continue a hunger strike begun on April 11 in a sign of protest against what he says was his illegal detention.

The journalist was among ten people detained at the Day of Anger protest. They group was charged with disobeying police orders.

Police officers reportedly used force to remove public defender Denis Yudin from the station where the group was being held. Yudin had intended to provide the detainees with legal counsel.

The next day, the Tverskoy Court returned materials against the detainees that they had received from the police on the basis that they had been incorrectly prepared. The proceedings were then rescheduled.

Late on Monday, a copy of the letter between Moscow’s prosecutor general and Moscow Chief of Police Vladimir Kolokoltsev was posted on the blog of Left Front Press Secretary Anastasia Uldatsova, wife of organization leader Sergei Udaltsov. In the letter, dated September 21, 2010, Semin claims that the police have not been taking “sufficient preventative measures directed at stopping” rallies in the Strategy 31 and Day of Anger campaigns, which are almost never sanctioned by city authorities.

The letter was written specifically in reference to rallies held on July 31 (Strategy 31) and August 12 (Day of Anger). The organizers of these events were Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Eduard Limonov, Konstantin Kosyakin, and Sergei Udaltsov. “Not one of the notifications [about the rallies] was sanctioned by the Moscow government,” reads the letter. “At the same time, statements by organizers of the unsanctioned rallies of their intent to hold these public events were circulated over the internet and through the Interfax news agency, regardless of the decisions taken by government agencies. The distributed information also contained calls for citizens to take part in them.”

In Semin’s opinion, this constitutes “a violation of the order of organizing and holding large-scale events,” article 20.2 of Russia’s federal administrative violations code.

When organizers announce to the press that they plan to hold an unsanctioned event, the police should take it as “information indicating the existence of a case of an administrative violation” and, accordingly, as a basis to press charges, says the prosecutor.

Following the July 31 event, police filed charges only against Kosyakin, who was detained at the rally, the prosecutor notes.

“Not one protocol, including before the beginning of the event, was filed against the rest of the organizers,” says Semin.

The letter demands that Kolokoltsev rectify the situation, including by punishing police officers guilty of not bringing administrative charges against oppositionists “preventatively.”

Gazeta.ru was unable to verify the authenticity of the letter: representatives of the Moscow Prosecutor General were unavailable for comment on Monday, and the head of the press service for the Moscow City Police, Viktor Biryukov, declined to discuss the document, saying he “hadn’t seen it.”

Expert Nikolai Zboroshenko of the Moscow Helsinki Group says that the position stated in the letter “is not based on law.” He told Gazeta.ru that Russia and other countries (Turkey in particular) have repeatedly lost cases in the European Court of Human Rights to ban large rallies.

“The ECHR has repeatedly indicated that people cannot be held liable for one incidence of participating in a rally,” Zboroshenko said. “And the police in general do not have the right to prevent rallies from being held.”

One of the organizers of Strategy 31, National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, called his fellow oppositionists to calm. “I wouldn’t pay much attention to these people (Semin and Kolokoltsev),” he told Gazeta.ru. “They would, of course, like for citizens to sit in bomb shelters when the police come out into the streets, but that’s not going to happen. Nobody is ever going to pass that law. It’s just two old reactionist careerists writing letters to each other.”

According to Solidarity political council member Denis Bilunov, the letter was reminiscent of crackdowns on opposition protesters in the run-up to Russia’s 2008 presidential elections. “This is a sure sign of the approach of the pre-election year,” he wrote on his blog. “In 2007, as I recall, people were detained in the Moscow metro for ‘the intent to take part in an unsanctioned rally’. Afterwards, all of this nonsense somehow seemed to have calmed down a bit, but, as we see, it all still lies ahead.”

At the same time, many members of the Russian opposition have expressed disappointment that the city has chosen to continue Luzhkov’s tradition of banning anti-government protests. On September 30, the mayor’s office turned down an application from opposition organizers to hold another Day of Anger rally on October 12. The rally went ahead today regardless, and, as happens in nearly every opposition demonstration that the Moscow authorities choose to ban, police violently cracked down on the protesters, detaining more than 30 according to a source in city law enforcement.

But along with decisions handed down by the authorities, another development on Tuesday brought some good news for the Russian opposition: Eksmo, one of the country’s two largest publishing houses, has released a printed version of “Luzhkov. Results,” a report written by Solidarity co-leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov that scathingly criticizes the former mayor. While the document was the basis of a libel suit by Luzhkov against Nemtsov less than a year ago, it’s now being published in an edition of 20,000 hardback copies at 105 rubles (about $3.50) apiece. Ozon.ru will even ship copies abroad, for those able to navigate the Russian-only website.

Nemtsov explained how the publishing deal was reached:

“Immediately after Luzhkov’s dismissal, V. Milov and I were approached by the Eksmo publishing house with an unexpected proposal – to commercially publish ‘Luzhkov. Results.’ I explained to the guys from the publishing house that we’ve handed out 400 thousand ‘Luzhkov. Results’ at metro stations in Moscow over the past year.

However, this didn’t frighten the publishing house, and we negotiated a contract. And even made provisions for a symbolic honorarium.”

The book will include the entire text of the original report, plus updated information about events surrounding the mayor’s dismissal.

A description of the book by Eksmo reads: “A book by Boris Nemtsov – the first and, as of yet, the only independent investigation of the activities of Luzhkov for the 17 years of his rule.”

In the same spirit of ‘Luzhkov. Results,’ Nemtsov and Milov released ‘Putin. 10 Years. Results’ this past June. One million copies of the report (excluding samizdat copies) have been published, and the authors have been traveling throughout Russia since its release to distribute them.

“I asked if Eksmo would publish ‘Putin. Results,’ which we’re distributing all over the country for free,” Nemtsov said, following the news about the Luzhkov book. “They’re not yet ready for that.”

Lev Ponomarev, head of the organization For Human Rights, told Ekho Moskvy radio that a request had been sent to Interim Mayor Vladimir Resin to sanction the “Day of Anger,” part of a regular series of rallies under that name. The demonstrations are aimed at allowing Russian citizens to voice their collective grievances against corrupt government officials, civil rights abuses, unconstitutional policies, and other political and societal problems. The rallies are routinely banned and violently broken up by police.

While it is completely routine for the Russian authorities to ban opposition protests on weak or nonexistent pretexts, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov was known for going to the extreme and banning rallies just so he didn’t have to see them. As Ponomarev told Ekho Moskvy, it would not be right for Resin “to continue the tradition that was formed under Yury Luzhkov, in which any rally on Tverskaya Square across from his office was automatically banned.”

“There were many violations of the rights of Muscovites, illegal actions, corruption” under Luzhkov, the rights advocate went on. “One of these violations was the regular prohibition of large demonstrations outside his window. There must be changes. Resin, in temporarily fulfilling the mayor’s duties, should act according to the law.”

Organizers of the upcoming Day of Anger, scheduled for October 12 on Moscow’s Tverskaya Square, handed in an application for the event the day Luzhkov was fired. On September 30, they received notification that their application had been denied, on the basis that the rally would “bother Muscovites and guests of the city” and could possibly result in damage to a monument on the square. Oppositionists decried the move as unfounded, saying that the city was giving up the chance to improve the political climate in the capital.

Corresponding Day of Anger rallies are planned for October 12 in cities throughout Russia, including in St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Penza, Kirov, Voronezh, Ufa, Krasnoyarsk, Ivanovo, and many other cities. The last Day of Anger in Moscow was held without official sanction on September 12. Thirty out of the approximately 200 participants were detained by police.