City Hall on Friday rejected an application to hold a march on Tverskaya Ulitsa in central Moscow next month in support of the "Bolotnaya case" defendants who stand accused of clashing with police during an opposition rally in May 2012.
The organizers had asked permission for 30,000 people to march along Tverskaya Ulitsa from Belorussky Station to Manezh Square on Feb. 2.
Pyotr Tsarkov, one of the organizers and an activist from the Solidarity movement, said that City Hall instead suggested staging a march for 15,000 people to the northwest of the city center on Prospekt Akademika Sakharova, Interfax reported.
Tsarkov said that he and the other organizers would consider the proposal and respond by Monday.
The rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad on May 6, 2012 descended into fights and skirmishes that resulted in dozens of people getting injured and more than 400 being detained. Authorities later opened criminal cases against 28 protesters on charges of taking part in the "riots," though some were amnestied in December.
