UPDATE - Rosbalt Correspondents Detained In Downtown Moscow - Editor-in-Chief

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published February 03, 2021 | 04:10 AM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd February, 2021) Rosbalt news agency correspondents Alexey Voloshinov and Stanislav Koryagin were detained during an unauthorized rally in downtown Moscow's Dmitrovsky Lane, the agency's editor-in-chief Nikolai Ulyanov told Sputnik.

After the sentencing of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, his supporters began to call for an unauthorized rally in the center of Moscow. Riot police stopped the protest in Dmitrovsky Lane using force, then detentions began. A Sputnik correspondent reported that two people in "Press" vests had been detained in Dmitrovsky Lane.

"Alexey and Stanislav were detained. The guys had editorial IDs and assignments, in addition to vests with the inscription 'Press'. They are being taken to the Konkovo police station," Ulyanov said.

A court in Moscow on February 2 sentenced Navalny to 3.5 years behind bars in a financial misdemeanor case. The ruling came to replace Navalny's suspended sentence in the same case due to his breach of conditions set in the court's original verdict.

Navalny's legal team has 10 days to appeal the ruling.

After the sentencing of Navalny, his supporters began to call for an unauthorized rally in the center of Moscow, including in Dmitrovsky Lane, on Manezhnaya Square and near the Bolshoi Theater. They began to gather for unauthorized protests, including going out onto the roadway, interfering with the movement of vehicles and pedestrians.

In 2014, Alexey Navalny and his brother Oleg were indicted on charges of embezzlement in dealings with the Russian subsidiary of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. Alexey got a 3.5-year suspended sentence, with one of the conditions being that he check in with the police in person at least twice a month.

In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Navalny's house arrest during the Yves Rocher case trial breached several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights but declined to recognize the case as politically motivated.