More than 140 people were arrested on Wednesday July 15 by police after an opposition rally in central Moscow to protest against a recent revision of the Constitution, according to the monitoring NGO OVD-Info protests in Russia.

In total, 142 people were apprehended, according to this source, after this unauthorized protest action against the constitutional amendments which notably gave President Vladimir Putin the right to remain in power until 2036, the year of his 84 years.

Russian police and government have yet to communicate on the arrests.

Arrest of a municipal deputy 

Ioulia Galiamina, an opposition municipal deputy who is a figurehead of this movement against this revision of the Constitution, announced on Facebook that she had been arrested with her daughter in the Russian capital.

Police surrounded the protesters and made arrests late in the evening after the protesters set out for one of the main Moscow boulevards.

AFP reporters saw protesters and journalists arrested on a city center street, then taken to police buses after the rainy demonstration in Pushkin Square. An AFP correspondent was briefly arrested.

Yulia Galiamina and her supporters were collecting signatures - she wrote on Twitter that she had obtained 5,000, "an excellent result" - for an appeal to the Supreme Court against this month's revision of the Russian Constitution.

Opposition activists thus regard this vote on the constitutional revision as illegitimate and believe that it is time for Putin, in power for more than two decades as president or prime minister, to step down.

After a vote organized in late June and early July, this reform was approved by almost 78% of voters, according to official results, but the opposition denounced massive fraud.

Opponent Alexei Navalny called this public consultation a "huge lie" and the NGO Golos, which specializes in election observation, denounced an "unprecedented" attack on the sovereignty of the Russian people.

"They say the results were faked"

"I voted against," said Inna Golovina, a 46-year-old accountant who was in the Russian capital on Wednesday during the protest. "It is said that the results were faked. I came to express my opposition," she adds.

"Russia without Putin!", "Russia will be free!", Protested protesters.

"The authorities do what they want, the opinion of the people does not interest anyone," complains Andrei Stepanov, 50, a retired soldier who took part in a similar action in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia. 

Up to 1,000 people had gathered for the occasion, according to an AFP journalist.

"We have to show that we are against it in a certain way," continued Andrey Stepanov.

The revision of the Constitution in particular strengthens the powers of the Head of State and allows him to serve two additional terms.

With AFP and Reuters

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