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.

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.

Members of the Other Russia opposition party and a group of civil activists were attempting to hold the latest in a weekly protest campaign that they have dubbed “An Election Without the Opposition is a Crime.” Participants held signs lamenting the exclusion of numerous opposition groups in upcoming parliamentary elections and passed out flyers calling for people to join them in a culminating protest on December 4 – the day of elections for representatives to the State Duma.

The police presence on the square was heightened from the last protest, with a full perimeter set up around Triumfalnaya and several paddy wagons stationed to cart away demonstrators. Law enforcement officers also videotaped the protest.

Of the 26 protesters arrested, Kasparov.ru reports that at an ambulance was called for at least one – Yevgeny Popov, whose forehead was cut when he was detained and forced into a police bus.

No information was available as to whether or not the protest had been sanctioned by city authorities.

Other Russia party member Aleksandr Averin said 20 police officers armed with automatic weapons broke into the office near Moscow’s Belorusskaya metro station on Wednesday, breaking both the door and a window.

Another Other Russia party leader, Nikolai Avdyushenkov, said four activists have been detained – Konstantin Makarov, Marat Salakhiev, Dmitri Kulkov and Alena Kapotina.

“It’s obvious that today’s search is connected with tomorrow’s action on Triumfalnaya Square,” said Averin, referring to the traditional meeting place for Strategy 31 participants. “Members of law enforcement agencies are trying to frighten supporters of free assembly in carrying out the orders of their superiors.”

“It’s particularly worth noting that there was also a raid on the headquarters of Strategy 31 on January 30, prior to the last action on Triumfalnaya. It’s true that, at that time, the police officers behaved correctly. Is this really how the renaming [of the ‘militsiya’] to the ‘politsiya’ has had an effect?” Averin asked.

There were three separate raids in Moscow on January 30 that affected the Other Russia party: on Avdyushenkov’s apartment, on the apartment of a party activist in the village of Medvedkovo, and also on Strategy 31’s organizational headquarters. The raids were carried out in connection with a criminal case against members of the organization under suspicion of involvement in race riots near the Kremlin last December.

Regardless of whether the raids are meant to scare away Strategy 31 supporters, Moscow city police said on Wednesday that they intended to arrest anyone who shows up at tomorrow’s rally on Triumfalnaya Square, which has not been officially sanctioned.

“The city mayor’s office proposed several different areas to hold the rally to organizers of this event; however, traditionally and consciously entering into conflict with the authorities and law enforcement agencies, Limonov did not turn down the places chosen for him and called for people to come to Triumfalnaya Square independent of the decision by the authorities,” police spokesman Viktor Biryukov told reporters.

“Police officers have every basis to arrest and place Limonov and other active supporters of provocational actions in police holding facilities,” he added.

Biryukov also said police would be asking those gathered at Triumfalnaya to walk over to Pushkin Square, where Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva plans to hold her own, sanctioned version of the rally.

On March 22, St. Petersburg police issued a summons to Other Russia party member Olga Zhukova to appear for interrogation before the federal Investigative Committee.

The summons asserted that if Zhukova did not appear she would be brought before investigators by force and possibly have her daughter turned over to social workers.

On their blog, St. Petersburg Other Russia members alleged that the threats were motivated by an upcoming anti-governmental demonstration. “For all intents and purposes, such activeness on the part of the ‘agencies’ is connected with the imminence of the March of Dissent. We remind you that a March for [St. Petersburg Governor Valentina] Matviyenko’s Resignation, one of the organizers of which is the Other Russia, will begin at the Gostiny Dvor metro station on 6 pm, March 31.”

The interrogation is being held in connection with a case filed against Other Russia members in St. Petersburg for “creating an extremist organization.” The case has been ongoing since November 2010.

According to the Other Russia party, the charges are based on information investigators gained from bugging an apartment where party activists held their meetings. Investigators believe the activists have rekindled the work of the National Bolshevik Party, which was banned in 2007 as an extremist organization. St. Petersburg authorities have raided the apartments of Other Russia party members multiple times and filed charges against ten of them. Both the National Bolshevik and Other Russia parties were founded by writer and controversial opposition leader Eduard Limonov.

Threatening to take children away from opposition activists is not an uncommon tactic used by the Russian authorities. Prominent environmental activist Yevgeniya Chirikova received such a threat earlier this month, as did fellow activist Alla Chernysheva. Yevgeny Ivanov, leader of a trade union of General Motors workers in Russia, has been threatened by child custody services with having his parental rights revoked. In the city of Dzerzhinsk, the local government attempted to take away the children of opposition activist Sergei Pchelintsev. Such tactics have even been used to threaten people who owe debts to the state.

According to a statement from the ministry’s press service, the registration application was rejected because the party’s charter “contradicts federal law.” A five-page response with the substantiation behind this claim will be sent to the Other Russia’s organization committee at some point, said a representative.

Commenting on the rejection, Other Russia executive committee member Aleksandr Averin said he was glad the Justice Ministry “deigned to remember our existence” but was surprised that ministry officials didn’t respond sooner. By law, they were required to do so by January 20 – 30 days after Other Russia organizers handed in their application on December 30.

“According to our information, a decision has been made at the highest level not to register other opposition parties as well, those like the ROT Front, the RZC, the Party of National Freedom/For Russia Without Tyranny or Corruption,” said Averin. “When we finally have the response in our hands, we will definitely appeal it in court.”

In his opinion, the ministry would not have responded at all had it not been for appeals made through the media. Phone calls by the organization to the ministry had long gone unanswered.

“We all understand that this is just a formality and that the issue of our failure to register is political, not legal,” said Averin.

Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov said he would not make another attempt to register the party.

“There was nothing more to expect from our government,” Limonov said on Ekho Moskvy radio. He echoed Averin’s remarks that the Justice Ministry was preparing to reject applications for registration from another six opposition groups.

Without official registration by the Justice Ministry, political parties cannot participate in elections in Russia. State authorities routinely deny registration to opposition parties, who counter that the refusals are politically motivated.

The Other Russia political party was founded on July 10, 2010. At the time, Limonov said he planned to register the party to participate in the 2011 parliamentary elections. He personally plans to run for president in 2012. He had expected the party to run into problems in obtaining registration.

The detentions began on Monday, when a group of opposition activists, journalists, and other supporters were standing in a line outside a Moscow detention facility, where opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin, Konstantin Kosyakin, and Eduard Limonov are currently sitting out short-term jail sentences. The four were arrested in connection with an unsanctioned rally in defense of free assembly held on New Year’s Eve, and received sentences from between 5 and 15 days each.

The supporters had lined up to take turns holding solitary pickets – the only form of protest legally allowed in Russia without prior government approval. However, a police bus soon arrived and the awaiting protesters were taken to a police station.

“They detained us on Simferopolsky Bulvar near the detention center,” Aleksandr Rybkin, a leading member of the Solidarity opposition movement, told Interfax. “Twenty people were standing at the bus stop; we said we were going to replace one another in a solitary picket. The OMON simply surrounded us and shoved us into the bus. Now we’re being sent to some unknown place.”

According to Gazeta.ru, one Ekho Moskvy journalist was among those detained.

On Tuesday, pickets and arrests both continued, but with a twist: this time, said Other Russia activist Nina Silina, members of the Kremlin-backed youth movement Nashi joined the solitary picketers, thus nullifying the solitary – and legal – nature of the demonstration. Police arrested the picketers, Nashi members, and all activists lined up on the side waiting their turn to picket.

All detainees were released on Tuesday evening. According to Silina, the only persons charged with any crimes were Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov and the Nashi members who organized the provocations, who were charged with violating the order of organizing public gatherings.

Udaltsov said that solitary pickets calling for the oppositionists to be released would continue no matter what.

The tactic of pretending to join a solitary picket in order to disrupt it is not uncommon.

Meanwhile, the US State Department has spoken out strongly against the New Year’s Eve crackdowns and Boris Nemtsov’s arrest in particular.

“We were pleased…that Moscow authorities had reversed their previous policy and decided to allow peaceful demonstrations. So we regret that these arrests have taken place, both in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We reiterate our – the importance of embracing and protecting universal values, including freedom of expression and assembly – they’re enshrined in the Russian constitution – as well as international agreements that Russia has signed,” Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley said on Monday.

“So we believe it is in Russia’s interest to promote freedom of expression and, as we noted, this is something that Russian leaders have endorsed publicly, but now they need to follow through and – but these kinds of arrests, we think, are contrary not only to commitments that Russia has made, but also to Russia’s long-term interest,” he concluded.

Russian legislators rejected the criticism entirely. “We denounce this as interference in the affairs of a separate state,” State Duma Deputy and United Russia member Mikhail Grishankov told Interfax on Tuesday.

Boris Nemtsov, co-leader of the Solidarity opposition movement, and Eduard Limonov, head of the banned National Bolshevik party and the Other Russia party, were both sentenced to 15 days in jail – Nemtsov for insubordination to the police and Limonov for hooliganism. Left Front coordinator Konstantin Kosyakin received a 10-day sentence for insubordination to the police and Solidarity member Ilya Yashin was sentenced to 5 days in jail, presumably for the same offense.

In the cases of Kosyakin, Nemtsov, and Yashin, a Moscow court refused to admit testimony from 13 witnesses who asserted that the police had acted unlawfully during the rally.

According to Other Russia party member Andrei Gorin, Limonov had been arrested directly outside of his home on his way to the rally. He was sentenced that very evening.

The nationwide rallies were held as part of the Russian opposition’s ongoing Strategy 31 campaign, which is dedicated to the defense of the 31st article of the Russian constitution, guaranteeing the freedom to peacefully hold gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets.

In Moscow, organizers held two separate rallies, both at 6 pm on Triumfalnaya Square. Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a former Soviet dissident and highly regarded rights activist, received approval from the city to hold one of the rallies. Limonov and Kosyakin organized the second, unsanctioned rally.

As Gazeta.ru reports, the police presence at Triumfalnaya Square that night was strong even compared to previous Strategy 31 events.

“More than one thousand people have gathered at the sanctioned rally,” the correspondent reported. “Police are inspecting everyone very closely; there are a thousand of them as well… Several hundred members of the Other Russia coalition are gathered near the metro.”

An estimated 1500 ralliers came out to Triumfalnaya Square in total.

Moscow city police had cordoned off the square earlier in the day, particularly around the sidewalk between the square and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, where participants of unsanctioned Strategy 31 rallies usually gather. Anyone who attempted to join that rally from the neighboring Mayakovsky metro station was detained directly at the exit.

Other Russia member Sergei Aksenov was detained after announcing over a megaphone that Limonov had been arrested.

According to Kasparov.ru, OMON riot police periodically squeezed together the participants on Alexeyeva’s side of the square – a tactic commonly used by police during Strategy 31 rallies that often makes it difficult for those present to move or even breathe.

Following up from last year, Alexeyeva came to the rally dressed as a festive snowmaiden. Other oppositionists dressed up as well: environmental activist Yevgenia Chirikova came in a Little Red Riding Hood costume. Rights activist Lev Ponomarev said he wanted to dress as Father Christmas, but couldn’t get ahold of a suitable cap.

After the sanctioned rally had officially ended, some participants – including Nemtsov and Yashin – attempted to cross over to the unsanctioned rally and were promptly arrested. According to Interfax, about 70 people were detained on Triumfalnaya Square in total.

Prior to the rallies, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin had warned that the city would not allow large, unsanctioned events to be held on New Year’s Eve, and that “those who plan to violate the law” could find themselves face-to-face with some unpleasant consequences.

Viktor Biryukov, head of public relations for the Moscow city police, said that they would not allow provocateurs and participants of any possible unsanctioned rallies to ruin New Year’s Eve night for people in the city.

In St. Petersburg, police arrested about 60 people in one of two Strategy 31 rallies held in the city that night. City authorities had refused to grant sanction to either rally.

As Fontanka.ru reports, all the arrests occurred at Gostiny Dvor, where between 100 and 300 people had gathered to rally. Nine girls were detained after unfurling a poster reading “freedom is more important than Olivier salad.”

No arrests were made at the second rally, which had about 100 participants from the United Civil Front, Solidarity, Yabloko, and other opposition groups. Many ralliers wore shirts picturing Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil oligarch who was convicted for a second time last week. He will now continue to sit in prison until 2017. The conviction is widely seen as the personal vendetta of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Photographs of the Moscow rallies can be found by clicking here and here.

Update 11/5/10: Pivovarov has been released and his sentance annulled per court order, after a judge pointed out that his rights as a defendant had been violated. Among others, the activist was denied the right to choose an attorney and the police officers who had detained him were never identified.

Courts and law enforcement agencies are currently deciding the fates of three opposition activists who helped to organize a rally in defense of free assembly in St. Petersburg this past Sunday, Kasparov.ru reports.

Andrei Dmitriev and Andrei Pesotskov, both members of the Other Russia party, were detained at a rally at Gostiny Dvor as part of the Russian opposition’s Strategy 31 campaign. The two were charged with organizing an unsanctioned rally and disobeying a police officer, and were sentenced the next day to 5 and 14 days of administrative arrest, respectively. Following their sentencing, both Dmitriev and Pesotskov’s apartments were raided by police.

A St. Petersburg court acquitted both men on Wednesday morning, but authorities followed to file a criminal suit alleging that the two participated in “extremist” activity.

“The court reconsidered the punishments and released them,” said Other Russia representative Andrei Milyuk. “However, Pesotskov and Dmitriev were immediately taken to Center ‘E’ for interrogation on a criminal suit and it’s not clear whether or not they’re free to go,”

The Center for Extremism Prevention, commonly referred to as Center “E,” is a branch of federal Russian law enforcement that is charged with investigating what is deemed to be “extremist” activity. Human rights organizations around the world have criticized the center for torturing criminal suspects and other abuses of authority, particularly against opposition activists, and for its broad definition of what constitutes extremism.

A harsher sentence was handed down to Andrei Pivovarov, leader of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian People’s Democratic Union and another organizer of the October 31 rally. Pivovarov was arrested at Gostiny Dvor together with Dmitriev and Pesotskov. On Monday, he was sentenced to 27 days of administrative arrest for organizing Strategy 31 rallies in August and October and for disobeying a police officer.

Originally, this same judge had sentenced Pivovarov to 14 days of arrest for his organization of the August 31 rally, but the oppositionist was released after two days of protests in support of his release. An appellate court ordered the case to be reviewed, and, as it turns out, Monday’s verdict is partially the result of that review.

Opposition activists have spent the past two days staging protests calling for Pivovarov’s release. In Moscow, Solidarity leaders Ilya Yashin, Sergei Davidis, and Mikhail Shneyder held solitary pickets – the only type of protest that doesn’t require government sanction to be held legally – while Solidarity leader Boris Nemtsov joined in ongoing pickets in St. Petersburg. The group plans to continue protesting so long as Pivovarov remains under arrest.

Two separate Strategy 31 rallies were held in St. Petersburg on October 31. One at Gostiny Dvor was attended by approximately 1000 people, by organizers’ estimates. Police began arresting the demonstrators immediately after the rally began. According to St. Petersburg police, only about 120 people came out to the rally, 104 of whom were detained.

A second rally at Dvortsovaya Square was attended by about 300 people. Police began detaining activists after they unfurled a 30-meter Russian flag.

Other rallies in the Strategy 31 campaign were held on Sunday across the country, including in the cities of Moscow, Vladivostok, Kurgan, Penza, Murmansk, Tver, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Astrakhan, Sochi, Ryazan, Krasnodarsk, and others.

Aleksandr Averin of the Other Russia opposition party told Kasparov.ru that rally organizers received a proposal from the mayor’s office on Wednesday to hold the rally on either Pushkin Square, Bolotnaya Square or a small strip of Triumfalnaya Square between the Peking Hotel and Brestskaya Street.

“The problem is that the authorities are prepared to sanction a rally numbering 200 people in this section, and not 1500,” he noted.

Averin said that the three Strategy 31 organizers – former Soviet dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov, and Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin – would announce their official response to the city’s proposal on Thursday.

Days earlier, online newspaper Gazeta.ru reported that the pro-Kremlin youth organization Young Russia has received permission to hold a rally to promote giving blood – but not an actual blood drive – also on Triumfalnaya Square on October 31.

Young Russia’s application had originally proposed holding the event on either Triumfalnaya or Pushkin Squares, “but the mayor’s office agreed to have our action be held precisely on Triumfalnaya,” said the organization’s press secretary, Natalia Maslova.

Opposition activists have maintained for months that rallies organized by pro-Kremlin youth movements for the same date, time, and place as Strategy 31 events are simply attempts to take up the space so that oppositionists are unable to use it.

The fact that the Moscow mayor’s office only agreed to let 200 people rally on Triumfalnaya may be connected with recent comments by prominent Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov – comments that do not bode well for the future of the opposition’s movement.

Following the dismissal of longtime Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Surkov spoke in an interview with the business magazine Vzglyad about the controversy surrounding Triumfalnaya Square. Surkov called the Strategy 31 protesters “virtual heroes and martyrs” who “really couldn’t organize anything,” and said that “any new [Moscow] government, per Russian tradition, will show generosity.”

“We are completely unconcerned with such events,” Surkov went on. “For a democratic state, they are completely normal. The main thing is that everything be done according to the law. If two hundred people in Moscow, a city of many millions of people, want to gather without fail on the 31st date and without fail on Triumfalnaya – let them gather.”

Since Strategy 31 events are regularly attended by upwards of one thousand protesters, Surkov’s statement that only 200 would want to gather on Triumfalnaya may be based on police statistics of the number of rally attendees, which are often much lower than the attendance as reported by independent media sources and opposition organizers.

Surkov went on to say that “the opposition should not get the feeling that everything is permitted to them. They aren’t permitted everything.”

“Over the course of these past few years, all of the actions of the city authorities and the Moscow police in regards to all street actions, all rallies and marches, sanctioned and unsanctioned, have been lawful and correct,” Surkov argued. “I would say – irreproachable. I’m sure that this is how it will be in the future.”

The actions that Surkov has judged as “irreproachable” include scheming to deny oppositionists space to hold their events and calling out riot police and internal military forces to brutally beat and detain hundreds of peaceful protesters.