Hundreds Rally For 'Fairness' In Moscow After Journalist Ivan Golunov Freed

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2019) Some 1,600 protesters rallied in Moscow on Sunday in support of "law and fairness for all," days after Russian police dropped charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov.

Demonstrators marched down Prospekt Sakharova street in a show of solidarity with the journalist whose arrest on June 6 triggered a massive backlash.

The rally was authorized by Moscow city hall. There was heavy police presence and the street was cordoned off, a Sputnik correspondent said.

The gathering was addressed by Pavel Gusev, the head of the Moscow Union of Journalists, who warned that media workers in Russia were "under real threat."

"Journalists' work is within the law. There is a law on mass media and we stick to it. Why do some officials .

.. ignore the law when it comes to us? Why are journalists' rights and freedom of speech being breached? We say the law is the same for all," he said.

The rally wrapped up in the early afternoon. Protesters adopted a resolution that called on Moscow police to carry out a thorough probe into Golunov's case and review sentences passed on other journalists and right activists.

Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said Tuesday that drug charges against Golunov, a freelance journalist working for Latvian-based news website Meduza, were dropped because of a lack of proof.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday dismissed two senior Moscow police officials, Gen. Andrei Puchkov and Gen. Yuri Devyatkin, who were involved in the probe.