Russia protests: Opposition leader Alexei Navalny sentenced

Russia's opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to 30 days' administrative arrest for repeatedly violating the law on staging rallies.

He was detained at his home in Moscow earlier on Monday, ahead of anti-corruption demonstrations in Russia.

Hundreds of people were held during the gatherings across the country.

Riot police in central Moscow were picking protesters out of the crowd at random, a BBC correspondent at the demonstration has said.
Court in Moscow announced its verdict late on Monday, rejecting demands by Alexei Navalny's defence lawyers to drop the case.

The 41-year-old opposition leader later confirmed this in a tweet on his Twitter page (in Russian).

Mr Navalny, who intends to stand for the Russian presidency next year, had been due to attend the unauthorised rally in the capital earlier on Monday.

OVD-Info, an independent NGO, said that 825 people had been detained at the protest in the capital.

Police in Moscow say about 5,000 took part in the demonstration there, Interfax news agency reports.

OVD-Info also said that hundreds of people were held in St Petersburg.

Russia's interior ministry says about 3,500 people attended the protest in the north-western city, and 500 were detained.

This was a peculiar protest.

At first it was hard to tell who was taking part. Tverskaya Street was full of families marking Russia Day with entertainers in historical costumes.

Then thousands of protesters turned up. Huge numbers of riot police were right behind them.

First they announced that the rally was illegal then the arrests began. We saw dozens of people plucked from the crowd - many of them young - and dragged roughly towards police buses.

By calling people to an unauthorised rally, Alexei Navalny knew he was risking a confrontation. The police duly obliged.

But people I spoke to said they knew the risk and still wanted their voices to be heard. Among other things, those voices chanted loudly: "Putin, thief!" and "Russia will be free".

In a live broadcast by the Russian liberal TV channel, Dozhd, protesters in St Petersburg could be heard shouting "shame" as they were detained by police. Among those arrested was Maxim Reznik, the city's legislative assembly deputy.

Prominent activist Daniil Ken said he was arrested as he left his home in St Petersburg. He urged people to join the rally at the city's Champ de Mars square. "Go for me, please!" he tweeted. He has since been released.

Police had earlier detained several people at demonstrations in the cities of Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Kazan.