An update on the case of Ivan Golunov, the investigative reporter falsely accused of drug dealing in Moscow:
In a stunning reversal, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev announced late on June 11 that the charges against Golunov were being dropped for lack of evidence that he committed a crime…
Despite this, some of Golunov’s supporters took to the streets today, on Russia Day, to protest against the abuse of the country’s draconian drug laws by law enforcement, and against the laws themselves.
Police detained several hundred people as demonstrators marched through central Moscow to maintain pressure on the authorities following the release of Ivan Golunov…
It wasn’t a huge rally – another one is scheduled for Sunday and is expected to draw a larger crowd – but it appears that every third participant got detained, if one divides the number of detainees estimated by the human rights monitor by the number of protesters estimated by the police.