In Nizhny Novgorod the March of the Dissent was to start at 12 on Saturday, November 24.

All the attempts to find consensus with the authorities have failed. The administration of Nizhny Novgorod refused to authorize holding a rally in Gorky Square under the pretext that “it is not meant for holding public actions”.

People started to get together in the area of Gorky Square at around 11.40. The Square had been cordoned off with the military troops at the Ministry of the Interior. Soldiers are manning the square along its perimeter. The OMON forces are concentrated in the yards and they block most of the adjacent streets. Some 20 policemen are at the entrance to the Central Post Office. There are some ten police buses full with the policemen and six cars of road police behind the building. There are three buses with the police force at the building of MacDonalds. People tell that a suspiciously looking groups of youngsters were seen behind MacDonalds and at the Europe food store. In Zvezdinka Street people saw six buses with the police force. There are slogans “From Governor to residents of Nizhny Novgorod” on all of them. According to rough estimates, number of policemen and military amounts to some thousands…

At around 11.40 one of the organizers of the March, Ilya Shamazov, was detained and brought to the Nizhegorodskiy district prosecutor’s office.
The police started to detain people on the way to Gorky Square. Elena Evdokimova called from the Sovetskiy district police station and told that she had been taken there from her flat for a conversation. She was brought to the chief of the police station. Although she is not detained, the police don’t let her leave the premises of the police station.

At around 12.15 the police started to detain people who were standing in a group near MacDonalds. When detentions began, people started to shout “Russia without Putin”. Six of them were taken to Nizhegorodskiy police office. They tell that they were beaten up on the way there on the police bus. The police prohibit them to use cell phones. After that, people kept coming to MacDonalds and the group was growing. There were up to a hundred people in it. People in Nizhny tell that it is difficult to tell how many people were going to participate in the March, many were detained on the way to the venue. They received many phone calls from towns in the region like Arzamas, Balakhna, Dzerzhink, Kstovo, Zavolzhye where people were going to come to Nizhny Novgorod. Information about people being taken off trains is not available.

At around 12.50 the group raised the banner of the Other Russia and started to shout “We want Other Russia”, “Russia without Putin”. The police attacked them and detained some twenty of them. The detained people are being taken to Sovetskiy district police station.

At around 1 pm, six more people were detained at Mac Donalds although they were just standing there without any slogans.

The March of the Dissent in Nizhny Novgorod has been dispersed. The authorities again applied violence against a non-violent protest.

Tags: Марш несогласных