Over 30 Protesting LGBT Activists Detained In Moscow: Monitoring Group

Russian police on Saturday detained more than 30 people, most of them women, who were staging separate one-person protests in central Moscow against charges of spreading pornography levelled against a prominent LGBT activist, a monitoring group said.

One activist was also detained in St. Petersburg, OVD-Info, the monitoring group said.

Earlier this month, police in the Russian Far East charged Julia Tsvetkova, an LGBT and feminist activist, with spreading pornography via her pictures, she said on her Facebook page.

If found guilty, Tsvetkova may face up to six years in prison.

One of those detained in Moscow held a placard saying: "Today they send to prison for pictures, tomorrow they will send to prison for letters? Freedom for Julia Tsvetkova!"

One-person protests are usually legal in Russia. However there have been numerous cases of demonstrators being detained.

Police declined to comment on the detentions on Saturday.

Western governments and human rights activists have criticised the Russian authorities for their treatment of LGBT people.

A vote on proposed changes to the Russian constitution is ongoing. Among many amendments proposed by President Vladimir Putin is an article defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

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