Three picketers were detained in Astrakhan, demanding freedom for political prisoners. The detainees are already free

In Astrakhan, police detained three participants in single pickets who demanded the release of political prisoners and the exercise of the right to peaceful protest. The detainees reported this to the OVD-Info hotline.

The names of two pickets are known: Ekaterina and Anna Semenov.

At the police department, the detainees were asked to provide explanations about the action and were released on an obligation to appear to draw up a report.

Ekaterina Semenova said that during the detention, security forces took away phones, took screenshots of personal correspondence and unsubscribed the accounts of picketers from a group of supporters of Alexei Navalny in Astrakhan.

At the moment, the protesters are at large.

• Alexei Navalny has been in custody since January 18: at the request of the Federal Penitentiary Service, he was arrested for 30 days pending consideration of the service’s request to replace the suspended sentence policy in the Yves Rocher case with a real one. The Moscow Regional Court left this decision unchanged. In connection with Navalny's arrest, a series of protests took place across Russia. The largest protests took place on Saturday, January 23, and Sunday, January 31. Security forces reacted harshly to the protests: on January 23, more than 4,000 people were detained, and on January 31, more than 5,500 . On February 2, the court replaced Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real one - 2 years and 8 months in a general regime colony. On this day, more than 1,400 people were detained at a rally in support of the politician.