At least 14 reporters arbitrarily arrested during Russian protests

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the arbitrary arrests of at least 14 journalists while trying to cover anti-corruption demonstrations in Russia on 26 March, and calls on the authorities to drop all charges against them and to punish the police officers responsible.

Both the protests themselves and the crackdown were without precedent since 2012. According to initial counts, between 32,000 and 93,000 people participated in demonstrations throughout the country and around 1,800 of them were reportedly arrested.

According to RSF's tally, at least 14 of those detained were journalists who had gone to cover the protests.

Alexander Plyushchev of Echo of Moscow, Pyotr Verzilov of Mediazona, Pyotr Parkhomenko of Kommersant-FM, Timofey Dzyadko of RBC, Sofiko Arifjanova of Otkrytaya Rossya and Alec Luhn, a US reporter for The Guardian, were arrested in Moscow and were held for several hours at a police station.

The last three were charged with participating in an unauthorized demonstration but the charge against Luhn seems to have been dropped later after the foreign ministry intervened.

Sergei Satanovski of Novaya Gazeta, Nadezhda Zaytseva of Vedomosti, Roman Pimenov of Interpress and freelancer Artyom Aleksandrov were arrested in Saint Petersburg.

Sergei Rasulov of Kommersant, Fayna Kachabekova of Kavkazskaya Politika and Vladimir Servinovski of Eto Kavkaz were arrested in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, in the Russian Caucasus. Alexander Nikishin of Otkrytyi Kanal was arrested in the southwestern city of Saratov and was sentenced the next day to four days of administrative detention for "refusing to comply with instructions from the police."

Alexei Alexeyev, the news website Chernika's correspondent in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk, was hit by a policeman while filming a demonstrator's arrest. The unidentified policeman hit him in the face and legs, broke his glasses and insulted him.

"It is unacceptable that so many journalists were arrested although they were clearly identified," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

"Even more disturbing is the fact that some may be prosecuted and one was given a beating. This behaviour by the police contravenes Russian law and the international treaties by which Russia is bound. We ask the authorities to respect media freedom, punish those responsible and ensure that the police are properly trained to respect journalists' rights."

I showed my press card [to a riot police officer] but he just said: "So what?". Sergei Satanovski

Sergei Satanovski told RSF: "I showed my press card [to a riot police officer] but that did not convince him. He just said: 'So what?'." Fayna Kachabekova said: "I showed the police officers my Kavkazskaya Politika correspondent's card and I asked them to give me back my phone. But again no one reacted."

The protests against corrupt practices within the political elite were held in more than 80 Russian cities in response to a call from opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Despite their size, the protests were largely ignored by the leading national media and were curiously absent from the main online news aggregators.

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index.