On May 6, around 100 protesters gathered in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin to demonstrate for the political rights of Russian citizens and for the release of political prisoners in Russia. The demonstration was called by the German human rights NGOs iDecembrists and Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (Society for Threatened People). The date marked the first anniversary of the Bolotnaya Square protests, which were held in Moscow against the election fraud the previous May. Those protests ended in bloody clashes provoked by police forces which resulted in the detention of hundreds of protesters. Two protesters have since received lengthy prison sentences and fourteen more are currently in detention awaiting trial. Speakers at the Berlin event raised the plight of these and other political prisoners.

In a recent statement for Russian newspaper, Vedomosti, Mikhail Khodorkovsky wrote that the political motivation of the Bolotnaya trials is “obvious” and the objective is “to intimidate and demoralise opponents, and politically active voters, and to present the peaceful civil protest and constitutional fight for power as something marginal and extremist”.

Placards read “Freedom for Political Prisoners” and “Putin is a flawless dictator” while successive speakers called on the Russian government to immediately end its restrictions on freedom of assembly and protests and to release all political prisoners.

More pictures from the demonstration can be found on the Facebook page of iDecembrists.