A clip of police violence outside of FSB headquarters in Moscow. (YouTube)
The Russian security services that protect the regime of President Vladmir Putin have little tolereance for dissent.
At a demonstration against political repressions on March 14, Moscow police arrested nearly 50 protesters. Trying to navigate Russia’s strict rules on public assemblies, the activists staged a series of “one-person pickets” outside the Federal Security Service headquarters in the capital. According to the website OVD-Info, the authorities arrested 49 people, including three teenagers. The news website MBK Media reported 43 arrests, including the arrests of well-known opposition activists Sergey Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhaev, as well as 78-year-old human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov.
Officers beat several activists when arresting them. The police used force against demonstrators and concealed their faces with masks, refusing to identify themselves by their names or badge numbers. One adolescent protester suffered an asthma attack during his arrest and was denied medical attention. According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, another demonstrator was removed from a police van and transferred to an ambulance. The detainees were later processed at four different police stations, where they were denied access to lawyers.
