On Novopushkinsky Square, two activists holding an ongoing anti-governmental picket dubbed “Putin Will Be Executed” were arrested for supposedly “violating public order by holding either a meeting, rally, demonstration, march or picket,” an offense punishable by a fine from 500 to 2000 rubles (16 to 65 USD).

However, according to detained oppositionist Stanislav Posdnyakov, the pair had documents showing that the city had granted them permission to hold a picket at that time and place with up to ten participants. They plan to file suit against the officers involved.

Police had not detained any members of a previous picket under the same campaign a day before. A third action is planned for Thursday.

Another eleven activists were arrested the same day in front of Moscow’s Olympic stadium, where the band DDT was set to play a concert later in the evening.

According to Solidarity co-leader Nadezhda Mityushkina, the arrestees had been passing out leaflets protesting the unfairness of upcoming parliamentary elections on December 4 and instructing voters on how to ruin their ballots in protest. The goal of the campaign, which the activists are calling “Vote Against Them All,” is to have seven percent of voters cast their ballots against all candidates, thus passing the threshold needed by political parties to hold seats in the State Duma.

Mityushkina said that the arresting officers would not explain on what basis the activists were being detained. She personally was released after warning that she planned to file a complaint against them.

Among the activists who were not so lucky, all hailing from Solidarity, were Elena Bukvareva, Mark Galperin, Dmitry Monakhov, Artem Bystrov, Galina Shashanova and others. The group was brought to a police station and also charged with supposedly violating public order.

The arrests come on the heels of a new set of poll numbers for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party showing a nine-point drop in support in just one week, from 60 percent to 51 percent. In some regions, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, their numbers are even lower (29 and 31 percent, respectively). Among other questionable measures being taken to boost support for the reigning party is a racy television commercial calling for young people to “do it together” in voting booths on December 4.

During the concert, star rock critic Artemy Troitsky presented anti-awards to police officers (in absentia, of course) for epitomizing the very worst of their profession. Now, he’s facing up to two years in jail for just that.

As the Moscow Times reports:

The country’s most prominent music critic faces two years in jail for crossing into public activism and handing an “anti-prize” to a policeman he named the worst cop of the year.

Artemy Troitsky, who was also hit with a fine of 130,000 rubles ($4,600) on Wednesday, told The Moscow Times that he views the case as punishment for his activism but promised not to back down.

The case was opened on a complaint by former traffic policeman Nikolai Khovansky, who was the first to arrive at the site of a fatal road accident involving a LUKoil vice president in February 2010.

Khovansky was also the first to put the blame on the two women killed in the accident, Olga Sidelnikova and Vera Alexandrina, whose Citroen collided with the car of LUKoil vice president Anatoly Barkov on Moscow’s Leninsky Prospekt.

The case sparked much outrage, with media and many citizens accusing the police of covering up for Barkov and his driver. City police, nevertheless, ultimately cleared Barkov and his driver.

Troitsky targeted the police officer during a November show by the rock band DDT, naming him among the recipients of a prize for the worst police officers.

Interestingly, Khovansky’s daughter attended the show, during which DDT frontman Yury Shevchuk also named the year’s best cops.

Khovansky, who has since retired, filed a defamation lawsuit against Troitsky and won the case Wednesday in Moscow’s Gagarinsky District Court.

Troitsky also faces a separate criminal case for insult over the same incident, with a hearing scheduled for May 3, Interfax said. The offense is punishable with prison time.

The 55-year-old critic, known for his ties to Russian rock greats, did not attend the Wednesday hearing, saying he was ill, but he promised to appeal.

He said Khovansky was used by “puppeteers” who sought to punish him. “I believe they are people who don’t like my public activities,” he said by telephone, without elaborating on who might be behind the lawsuit.

“I am not a politician, but I am not the kind of guy who is going to surrender,” Troitsky added. “The more they pressure me, the more I will resist.”

In addition to the campaign against Barkov, Troitsky participated last year in protests against the partial destruction of the Moscow region’s Khimki forest, slated to go in order to make way for a state-backed highway. The protests ended in failure, with the government authorizing the road’s construction in December.

While city authorities had originally sanctioned the event, they then announced that there was no legal way to hold both a protest and a concert at the same time.

Regardless, Pushkin Square on Sunday was jam-packed with activists, environmentalists, and fans of the participating musicians.

As the Moscow Times reports:

While the three-hour rally ended peacefully, police earlier Sunday detained three prominent opposition activists who had planned to attend and blocked vans carrying the musical equipment of other musicians from the square.

Many demonstrators said they came to voice their opposition of both the deforestation in Khimki and of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

“The Khimki forest is the occasion, but if oil prices drop, there will be more people to protest here,” said Vladimir Kondrashyov, a 41-year-old driver wearing a T-shirt reading, “Putin, step down.”

Despite the concert ban, Shevchuk, frontman for rock band DDT, sang his hits “Osen” (Fall) and “Rodina” (Motherland) on an acoustic guitar standing on an improvised stage on a truck, surrounded by scores of journalists, police and demonstrators, including Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the Khimki forest protest movement. Shevchuk made headlines in May when he criticized Putin in a televised exchange at a charity dinner in St. Petersburg.

Many more bands and singers, including Alexander F. Sklyar, Barto, Televizor and OtZvuki Mu, were expected to perform but could not enter the square. Cars with concert equipment were barred by the police from entering the site.

The police presence was massive and included city law enforcement officers, OMON riot police, and internal military forces. More than thirty police buses lined Tverskaya Ulitsa and the square itself was entirely cordoned off. According to the Moscow Times, more about 1,500 officers had been deployed for the event. Musicians were barred from bringing any audio equipment besides megaphones onto the square.

“This undermines the idea not only of a concert, but of a rally in general,” said Mikhail Kriger, one of the event’s organizers.

Another organizer, Nikolai Lyaskin, told Kasparov.ru that motorcyclists had attempted to attack the minibuses carrying audio equipment to the protest. The masked assailants, he said, rode up to the buses and began beating their wheels with iron bars. The buses managed to escape undamaged.

The Kremlin-founded and notoriously overzealous youth movement Nashi attempted to disrupt the protest-concert by bringing three buses to Pushkin Square and asking those gathered to come to the forest to collect garbage.

“In order to defend the forest you need work gloves, trash bags, and people, not songs, rallies, or incendiary speeches,” said Nashi Commissar Maria Kislitsyna. “Whoever really cares about the forest is going to go clean it up and whoever doesn’t will stay at the concert and listen to songs in its defense.”

While noble in theory (albeit ironic, since the forest that they’re cleaning will soon no longer exist), environmental activist and protest organizer Yaroslav Nikitenko explained that the Nashi event was nothing more than a provocation. “If they actually wanted to defend the Khimki Forest, they would have done this earlier,” he said. Moreover, that Nashi got involved at all indicates that the federal authorities are becoming anxious over the sizeable movement in defense of the forest, Nikitenko added.

On Saturday, the day before the protest-concert, the state-run news channel Vesti reported that it had actually already been held. While airing a report on Nashi’s garbage-collecting event, a Vesti commentator said that “in this way, the members of the youth organization expressed their attitude towards the concert in defense of the forest that was held on Pushkin Square.” Whether the channel corrected the remark was unclear.

Photos of the protest-concert are available at Gazeta.ru by clicking here.

The event is planned to be held on August 22 on Pushkin Square, and the mayor’s office had initially agreed to the event. However, a press release from the mayor’s office on Thursday stated that the organizers had only submitted the paperwork to hold a rally, not a concert.

Organizer Mikhail Shneyder was told by the city’s bureau for event management and safety that there’s no way to hold a rally and a concert at the same time. “You’re announcing all over the place that you’re holding a rally-concert, but that kind of format for an event does not exist. You will not be allowed to hold a concert and set up a covered stage,” Shneyder quoted the bureau as saying.

“I know that that kind of format doesn’t exist,” the organizer explained in response. “The law stipulates just a rally, but it’s for us to decide who is going to appear at our rally and how; if we want, we’ll call on a Buddhist and he’ll arrange 20 simultaneous chess matches.”

Regardless of any legal ambiguities, the organizers plan to go on with the show. Scheduled to be present are the groups DDT, OtZvuki My, Televizor, Padla Bear Outfit, and Barto. Journalist Artemy Troitsky agreed to host the event.

Yury Shevchuk, leader of DDT and an outspoken Kremlin critic, said the band had already purchased tickets to Moscow and was coming to the event for certain.

“Leap frog between the Moscow authorities – that’s a normal affair,” Shevchuk told Kasparov.ru. “We’re going to Moscow with an acoustic lineup and we’ll see there whether or not they’re going to let us play. That’s the kind of weather we have nowadays – either hot or cold.”

Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the movement to defend the Khimki Forest, insisted that the Moscow authorities had no legal right to ban their event. “I don’t know a single law that would ban setting up a stage for a rally. The authorities’ quibbles are entirely baseless,” she said.

“Let them not allow the people to hear Shevchuk and demonstrate to everyone that they are inflexible and unpopular politicians,” the activist went on. “We have been supported by musicians of the very highest caliber, and a smart civil servant wouldn’t think to bother us.”

The felling of the Khimki Forest began this past July. An expressway from Moscow to St. Petersburg is planned to take its place. Ecologists and activists have spoken out strongly against the project, insisting that it violates the law.