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Tens of Thousands Demand Fair Elections at Moscow Rally

VOANews

   - Updated Aug. 10, 2019, 12:15p.m.

   Tens of thousands of people converged on central Moscow Saturday to
   protest the exclusion of several opposition candidates from the
   upcoming city council election.

   The Moscow protest, one of Russia's largest since President Vladimir
   Putin was re-elected in 2012, was among several in the country.

   The White Counter, a non-governmental organization that tracks protest
   participants, said nearly 50,000 were participating in the Moscow
   rally, much higher than the Moscow police figure of 20,000.

   The protest monitoring group OVD-Info reported scores of arrests in
   Moscow and at other opposition demonstrations in St. Petersburg and
   Roston-on-Don.

   Lyubov Sobol, who is one of the opposition candidates, was detained at
   her Moscow office as she was updating supporters on social media before
   the sanctioned Moscow protest began.

   A video on Sobol's Twitter feed shows police in riot gear breaking into
   her office and demanding that journalists who were present to stand
   against the wall and put away their cell phones.

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