According to Dmitri Sidorenko, a member of the unregistered Other Russia party, the conflict began when an unknown assailant attempted to provoke him into a fight at Moscow’s Yuzhnaya metro station on the morning of August 3. He was then detained and brought to a police station, where a man presented himself as an FSB officer and showed a badge identifying him as Major Vladimir Aleksandrovich Belov.

The officer explained that he was interested in Sidorenko because of his involvement in the Strategy 31 protest campaign for free assembly. He then proposed that the activist become an informant and provide him with detailed information about the plans of Other Russia party leader and protest coordinator Eduard Limonov, promising “material compensation” in return.

The press release issued by the party states that Belov threatened Sidorenko with deportation to Belarus, where he is a citizen, after he refused. Conversely, if the activist accepted the offer, he would be granted Russian citizenship.

The police officer made it clear that Sidorenko would have problems at work if he declined the offer. He also told the activist that, “in the case of an incorrect decision,” he would lose his wife and two small children.

As an example, Belov mentioned Sidorenko’s sister-in-law, Olga Shalina, who is currently in a Nizhny Novgorod jail. The officer told him that her confinement was a result of “behaving badly.”

At the end of the conversation, Belov said that he would not bother Sidorenko in the coming days, but officers from the Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E) probably would.

Protests under the Strategy 31 campaign have been held across the country by Russian oppositionists every month with a 31st day for the past few years, dedicated to the 31st article of the Russian constitution for freedom of assembly. Almost without exception, Moscow city authorities have refused to sanction the rallies, and they have almost all ended with numerous arrests.

Eduard Limonov of the Other Russia party and Konstantin Kosyakin of the Left Front movement were both sentenced on Thursday in Moscow’s Tverskoy Regional Court. According to Judge Sergei Komlev’s verdict, the two were guilty of violating rally regulations by holding an unsanctioned protest on July 31, 2012, as part of the Strategy 31 campaign for free assembly. Limonov was fined 12 thousand rubles, while Kosyakin’s fine was 15 thousand rubles (about 380 USD and 470 USD, respectively).

Neither of the oppositionists pled guilty to the charges and insist that they did nothing unlawful. They also do not plan to pay the fines, saying that they simply cannot afford to. The fines are newly increased because of a new law passed in June that came in the wake of an unprecedented surge in anti-government protests during the previous winter.

More than 40 people were arrested at the July Strategy 31 rally in Moscow, including participants of a sit-in who held a flag displaying the campaign’s logo. A Strategy 31 rally on the same day in St. Petersburg also began with a sit-in; eight people were arrested.

Protests under the Strategy 31 campaign have been held across the country by Russian oppositionists every month with a 31st day for the past few years, dedicated to the 31st article of the Russian constitution for freedom of assembly. Almost without exception, they have all ended with numerous arrests.

On Wednesday, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) accepted the documents required to file the request. “Commission member Elena Dubrovina gave Limonov a document confirming that the necessary documents have been submitted in the appropriate form and within the appropriate timeframe,” said Aleksandr Averin, executive committee member of Limonov’s Other Russia party.

According to Averin, the CEC should announce whether it will or not it will register Limonov on December 20 – four days before opposition activists have scheduled another mass demonstration to protest what they say are fraudulent parliamentary election results.

Generally marginalized by the Kremlin and Russia’s state-run media, Limonov was nearly prevented from gathering the proper number of signatures needed to apply for registration when a December 11 meeting of his supporters was suspiciously cancelled.

Writing on his LiveJournal, Limonov described how police had hung banners explaining that the building where the meeting was to be held was cancelled due to “urgent repairs.”

The oppositionist described the conversation between him and an officer at the scene:

Me – You are violating the law, by law we have the right [to hold this meeting]; on November 30 I submitted a written announcement to the CEC that we would be holding a meeting to launch my candidacy at precisely this address, since we paid rent and so on.
Lieutenant – The police have nothing to do with this, the property owners are making repairs… we were called in to keep order.
Me – This is a political crime… they were holding meetings in these very auditoriums yesterday evening…

The abrupt closure was eerily similar to tactics used to prevent opposition leader Garry Kasparov from running for Russian president in 2007.

Russian electoral law requires 500 signatures to be collected at a meeting of a potential candidate’s supporters in order for the candidate to be registered. Forced to collect signatures in a nearby bus, Limonov nevertheless obtained 800.

In Moscow, Triumfalnaya Square was cordoned off by police from early morning hours, with officers telling journalists that “some sort of event” would be held there in the evening.

As the rally began and cries of “freedom of assembly always and everywhere” and “freedom to political prisoners” could be heard among the 200-strong crowd, riot police pushed a crowd of journalists and photographers away from the square towards an underground pedestrian passage and set about detaining the activists. Among those arrested were Solidarity members Ilya Yashin and Anastasia Rybachenko, Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov, and United Civil Front Moscow leader Lolita Tsariya.

According to Kasparov.ru, numerous activists were severely beaten by police while being detained. Doctors called to a police station where Rybachenko was being held advised her to have her neck examined in the station’s trauma center. Other Russia member Konstantin Tofimtsev was also reportedly beaten and placed in a cell separate from the other detainees.

Moscow city authorities had refused to sanction the protest on the basis that “archeological work” was being done on Triumfalnaya Square. While the square has been cordoned off for more than a year due to supposed construction plans for an underground parking garage, virtually no work has been done over that time.

In St. Petersburg, between 400 and 1000 Strategy 31 protesters attempted to hold an unsanctioned march along Nevsky Prospect. They were blocked by police, however, who then began detaining participants. According to local Other Russia leader Andrei Dmitriyev, many were kept in police holding overnight.

Approximately 150 protesters came out to a Strategy 31 protest in Rostov-on-Don. According to local United Civil Front and Solidarity leader Boris Baty, oppositionists were forced to go through several different courts before local authorities would sanction the event.

In Omsk, opposition organizers were prevented by local authorities from holding a regular rally, and local United Civil Front Secretary Viktor Korb explained to the gathered crowd that the group was therefore forced to hold a small public meeting instead.

Rallies were also held in the cities of Saratov, Sochi, Ryazan, Tomsk, and others.

Activists from various Russian civil and political movements have been holding Strategy 31 rallies for more than two years across the country. As a general rule, the protests are not granted sanction by local authorities and are routinely violently dispersed by riot police.

Video of the march in St. Petersburg:

The event, organized by the unregistered People’s Freedom Party (Parnas), was attended by about 1500 people, including representatives of the opposition groups Solidarity, the United Civil Front, the Other Russia party, the Left Front, the Russian People’s Democratic Union, and numerous other civil and political organizations.

Speakers included Parnas leaders Vladimir Ryzhkov, Boris Nemtsov and Mikhail Kasyanov, Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov, Moscow United Civil Front leader Lolita Tsariya and Solidarity activists Ilya Yashin and Anastasia Rybachenko, as well as rap musician Dino MC.

Speaking as the actual MC, Vladimir Ryzhkov said the rally marked the beginning of a national campaign: “We have five weeks until the elections, and in that time we must achieve some results. We have two tasks. The first is to not give a single vote to United Russia, and the second is to catch anyone falsifying [electoral results].”

According to Ryzhkov, the leading party’s real ratings are much lower than they would like people to think, with the actual figure hovering below 40 percent approval.

In his turn, Eduard Limonov put the blame for the current situation on the Russian intelligentsia. He called on famous writers such as Victor Pelevin, Vladimir Sorokin, and Valentin Rasputin to come out and join the oppositionists in protests on the December 4 election day.

Despite disagreements within the opposition as to what mode of action to take on election day (options include voting against every candidate, voting for candidates from any party other than United Russia or staging a boycott), all speakers present agreed that the most important thing was to stand together against United Russia.

Update 06/01/11: Number of detainees in Moscow updated; note of Toronoto rally added.

Russian opposition activists held rallies in defense of free assembly in dozens of cities across the country on Tuesday in the latest iteration of the Strategy 31 campaign. As usual, dozens of demonstrators were arrested in cities where local authorities refused to grant permission for the rallies.

In Moscow, an estimated 60 people were detained at an unsanctioned rally on Triumfalnaya Square, including, as has become customary, Other Russia party leader and rally co-organizer Eduard Limonov, Solidarity co-leader Ilya Yashin, and Left Front leaders Sergei Udaltsov and Konstantin Kosyakin. According to photojournalist Ilya Varlamov, it was very difficult to estimate the number of attendants, but it was likely no more than 300.

In a break from recent tradition, Limonov’s Strategy 31 rally was the only one held in Moscow on Tuesday. Leading Russian human rights advocate and former Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who for the past several months has successfully received official approval to hold her own Strategy 31 rallies, has chosen to organize different demonstrations on different days of the month.

The first to arrive on Triumfalnaya Square were Yashin, Udaltsov and Kosyakin, for whom Strategy 31 rallies usually with their detentions by police. This time was no different, as the three were arrested before they even had a chance to speak to clamoring television reporters – OMON riot police forced their way through a group of journalists to reach the opposition leaders. Similarly, Limonov was arrested as soon as he climbed out of his car.

Another traditional participant of the Strategy 31 rallies, Boris Nemtsov, was this time in Nizhny Novgorod, where activists held their own rally in defense of free assembly. Nemtsov, who came to the rally accompanied by his mother, signed several copies of his report “Putin. Results” for those present. Local police made no attempts to detain him.

“Recently, everyone has argued so much that it’s unclear how many people were coming and what they were going to do,” a rallier on Triumfalnaya Square told Gazeta.ru. Protesters did seem less prepared than usual – no flags or posters were seen in the crowd, and only a handful of people had badges with the number 31 pinned to their shirts. At the same time, organizers say that a demand for free and fair elections has officially been added to the Strategy 31 campaign.

Because Triumfalnaya Square itself continues to be blocked off for construction, ralliers were forced to gather along the bordering sidewalks – until police set upon them from both sides. Many were brutally pushed around; one woman cried out into the crowd, “they have no wives, that’s why they grope us!”

Cries of “freedom!” and “shame!” also sounded from the crowd, but police had almost entirely cleared the square of oppositionists half an hour after the rally had begun.

On the other side of the square, a small group of environmental activists calling for the defense of the Khimki Forest and representatives of a group called the Free Radicals tried to hold a small march, but were literally thrown to the ground by police after only 10 meters. Police then began to carry off the demonstrators; Sergei Konstantinov, head of the Free Radicals, howled at the top of his lungs until police brought him out of the view of journalists.

Police figures cite 26 detainees altogether on Triumfalnaya Square Tuesday night, while rally organizers put the number at 60. As usual, rally leaders are being charged with organizing an unsanctioned demonstration. They face up to 15 days of administrative arrest.

Strategy 31 rallies were also held in dozens of other Russian cities, some with arrests. In St. Petersburg, approximately 100 demonstrators were detained, including at least one minor, at two unsanctioned demonstrations. A heavy police and separate “monitoring” presence was noted at a rally in Omsk, and protesters were forced to hold solitary pickets in Blagoveshchensk after local authorities refused to sanction a larger demonstration – on the basis that 500 visiting Chinese children were scheduled to play in the square.

Rallies in solidarity were also held in New York City, Toronto, London and Rome.

Article compiled from reports by Gazeta.ru and Kasparov.ru.

Update 04/01/11: Information added about protests at Dvortsovaya Square and in Ryazan.

Opposition rallies were held throughout Russia on Thursday as thousands of activists and human rights advocates continued to support the Strategy 31 campaign in defense of free assembly.

In Moscow, two separate rallies were held per recent tradition. Between 300 and 1000 people joined Strategy 31 co-leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva for a government-sanctioned rally at Pushkin Square, where the longtime rights advocate spoke alongside fellow advocate Lev Ponomarev, environmental activist Yevgeniya Chirikova, and others.

Moscow city police estimated the crowd at 150 ralliers and 150 journalists.

Only one person appears to have been arrested at the rally. Someone dressed as a pigeon was taken away after rally organizers told police it could be a possible act of provocation.

Further up the street at Triumfalnaya Square, Strategy 31 founder and Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov attempted to hold his own, unsanctioned rally. According to Kasparov.ru, government officials turned down Limonov’s application to hold the rally on the basis that a pro-Kremlin youth group had already been given permission to hold a rally in support of blood drives, dubbed “Donor Day,” at the same place and time. However, the publication noted that no such activists were seen on Thursday at the square.

Police blocked off Triumfalnaya early in the day and did not allow ralliers to congregate on the square in general. “They’ve begun to kick everyone out. Standing here is prohibited!” photojournalist Ilya Varlamov wrote on Twitter from Triumfalnaya Square at 5:32 pm, half an hour before the rally was scheduled to begin.

Limonov was arrested immediately upon arrival. “They say I shouted a slogan: ‘respect the constitution of the Russian Federation,'” Limonov told reporters from a police station. “I don’t know since when that became a violation of the law.” Co-organizer Konstantin Kosyakin was also arrested.

Police periodically pushed ralliers out of the square and eventually towards the metro while arresting dozens of others. An estimated 36-50 people were arrested altogether.

Solidarity activist Dmitri Monakhov, who had apparently gone to buy a hotdog, was detained while on line at a Stardogs stand.

During the rally, several unknown young people managed to unfurl banners reading “Hooray! Nutcases, go! Strategy 32” on buildings high above the square but were subsequently arrested.

Around 7:00 pm, about 50 protesters began to march down Tverskaya Ulitsa towards the Kremlin, blocking traffic in the process. Police arrested several of the marchers, five of whom were reportedly beaten severely.

One beaten activist, Dmitri Putenikhin, is currently being held for 48 hours and has been issued a summons from a military enlistment office on the basis of his “prior offenses.” However, human rights advocate Andrei Babushkin told Kasparov.ru that the summons was counterfeit.

According to oppositionist Oleg Kozlovsky, activist Sergei Konstantinov was taken away from a police station in an ambulance due to wounds from police.

An activist detained in the Presnenskoe police station reported by Twitter that police were confiscating the cellphones of detainees.

Presidential human rights advisor Mikhail Fedotov told Interfax that he saw no problems with how police treated Strategy 31 participants. “Everything that I saw on Triumfalnaya Square was organized entirely civilly. They acted very carefully. I saw how several young people who decided to hop around on the scaffolding with a banner were taken down and brought to a bus by the hand. Precisely by the hand,” he said.

Many more people were arrested at two unsanctioned Strategy 31 rallies in St. Petersburg.

By various estimates, between 1000-2000 people began marching from Gostiny Dvor along Nevsky Prospekt at 6:00 pm, shouting “it’s our city, “Russia for the political prisoners,” “freedom,” and “Petersburg without Matviyenko,” referring to Governor Valentina Matviyenko.

The marchers initially walked along the sidewalk, but later spilled into the street. They were blocked by police after about 300-400 meters, at which point officers began arresting marchers. According to local Solidarity leader Olga Kurnosova, about 200 people were detained.

Just before 7:00 pm, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov announced to the crowd that the rally was over and attempted to leave on a trolleybus. However, police blocked the bus and dragged Nemtsov out, arresting both him and fellow oppositionist Ilya Yashin.

Earlier in the day, Nemtsov had presented his newly printed report “Putin. Corruption” at a press conference in St. Petersburg. The 40-page document is drawn from open source material and concludes that “corruption in Russia has ceased to be a problem and has become a system.”

Oleg Vorotnikhov of the art activist group Voina was arrested and severely beaten while in detention. Police have reportedly taken away his young son Kasper and are threatening to take away his parental rights altogether. Fellow Voina activists Leonid Gegen and Ira Putilova were also detained.

Other detainees included two journalists from Moscow, a journalist and cameraperson from Georgia’s Channel One, and a Swedish woman who does not understand Russian.

At least one person was taken away from a police station in an ambulance.

Approximately 200 people took part in a second unsanctioned Strategy 31 rally at Dvortsovaya Square, including members of the liberal Yabloko party and human rights advocates. Organizers say the rally was calm and encountered no police interference.

Other Strategy 31 rallies were held throughout Russia’s regions, including in Vladivostok, Saratov, Kurgan, Ulan-Ude, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Kirov, Ryazan, and others.

At least 25 people were detained at an unsanctioned rally in Nizhny Novgorod. Activists were arrested immediately upon reaching the meeting place; several were beaten by police.

A rally in Rostov-on-Don was only successful after activists managed to obtain a court order forcing the local government to sanction it. All previous attempts to hold Strategy 31 events in the city had been blocked.

According to Kasparov.ru, authorities in Rostov-on-Don nevertheless attempted to hinder the rally by arresting its various organizers for “hooliganism.” Boris Batiy was sentenced to 3 days in jail and only released on the eve of the rally, Other Russia leader Grigory Elizarov was arrested for 7 days and will not be released until April 2, and local Left Front leader Vladislav Ryazantsev was forcibly placed in a psychiatric ward on March 30, despite having no history of psychological problems.

Approximately 100 people came out to the first-ever Strategy 31 rally in Volgograd. Police observed the event, filming and taking pictures from the sidelines. Participants spoke out against plans by the City Duma to get rid of direct mayoral elections.

Activists from Solidarity and other organizations held solitary pickets in Kirov since their application to hold a Strategy 31 rally was denied by the city government.

About 60 people came to a protest in Ryazan, where organizers spoke about censorship over the local media by Governor Oleg Kovalev that prevents them from informing the public about opposition demonstrations.

As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports:

Moscow city authorities today officially approved a planned rally by a group of human rights and opposition activists in support of freedom of assembly, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

Authorities gave the green light to the March 31 rally — organized by activists including Moscow Helsinki Group Chairwomen Lyudmila Alekseyeva — days after banning a similar protest planned for the same day.

Alekseyeva said today that her group’s rally will be held on Moscow’s Pushkin Square, not on Triumph Square, as it was in the past. Alekseyeva said city officials refused to permit the activists to march through the streets after the demonstration.

Eduard Limonov, a leader of the Other Russia opposition group, applied last week to the mayor’s office for permission to hold a large-scale Strategy 31 gathering on March 31 on Triumph Square. But city authorities rejected that application on March 18.

Limonov said that he and his supporters will gather on Triumph Square despite the ban and march from there to Red Square.

Limonov launched the Strategy 31 campaign in 2009. The movement holds protests on the last day of months with 31 days to commemorate Article 31 of the Russian Constitution that guarantees freedom of assembly.

Other opposition groups and rights activists later joined the campaign.

Limonov and Alekseyeva split in October after Alekseyeva agreed to the Moscow authorities’ request to limit the number of demonstrators at the protests to 1,000. Limonov accused her of collaborating with government officials.

Authorities in St. Petersburg have refused permission for a March 31 rally there.

Moscow Helsinki Group leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva and a group of other human rights advocates told Interfax they had decided to change the format of the rally. “We’re changing the place that we’re going to hold the rally. We think that there will be more participants at a rally on Pushkin Square,” Alexeyeva said.

The longtime rights advocate said one of the reasons for changing the location was the construction barrier erected around Triumfalnaya Square that the city authorities are refusing to take down.

“In addition, we don’t want for there to be any confrontation,” she said, likely referring to the unsanctioned Strategy 31 rallies that have been lead on the same square for the past several months by Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov.

Limonov says he still plans to hold his own version of the rally on Triumfalnaya Square on March 31, despite the break between organizers and regardless of whether the government sanctions it or not.

Until October 2010, Strategy 31 rallies in Moscow were organized by Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin, and Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov. For more than a year, the city refused to sanction the rallies and instead proposed alternative locations that would have isolated the protests from public view. The group split apart after Alexeyeva reached an agreement with city authorities to obtain sanction for a rally on Triumfalnaya with a limit of 800 participants. Limonov and Kosyakin insisted that no such limits should be imposed, and since then dual rallies have been held on the square on the 31st of each date – one sanctioned and one not.

Negotiations mediated in part by Memorial rights center head Oleg Orlov between the two groups earlier this month came to nought, Orlov told Interfax on Tuesday. “The negotiations are over. We regret that both sides turned out to be unprepared to find a rational compromise in the name of shared interests,” he said. “There’s too much disagreement and too much distrust.”

The new bill would put limits on the number of people allowed to demonstrate in the vicinity each of the city’s transportation facilities. These limits would ensure that “no less than half of a thruway can be used for vehicle transport and, when necessary, for citizens not taking part in the rally.” Any application submitted to the mayor’s office to hold a rally without consideration of these limits would be rejected.

The Russian constitution only requires organizers to notify local authorities that they are holding a rally, leading many critics to argue that Moscow’s policy of turning down certain applications is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, unsanctioned rallies are often violently repressed by the police.

The city administration said the bill is an attempt to deal with Moscow’s paralyzing traffic jams, which Mayor Sergei Sobyanin named as one of his top priorities after being appointed last October. But the limits would have no effect on state-sponsored events, limiting only opposition and other independent demonstrations. The city’s traditional St. Patrick’s Day parade, for example, was cancelled this year, ostensibly for the same reason.

According to Eduard Limonov, leader of the Other Russia party and co-organizer of the opposition’s Strategy 31 rally campaign, this is not the first time the government has tried to impose limits on the number of participants in rallies – but it is the first time they’re trying to put it into law.

Former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has argued that Strategy 31 rallies should not be held in their traditional meeting place – Triumfalnaya Square – out of concern for people’s safety, but at the same time has granted sanction to pro-Kremlin youth groups to rally in larger numbers on the same square.

Limonov said the new bill is connected to the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and that the Russian authorities are trying to “tighten the screws” out of a fear of public demonstrations.