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Freed Activist Udaltsov Briefly Detained for Protest at State Duma

Sergei Udaltsov Zykov Kirill / Moskva News Agency

A left-wing activist who was released from prison last month after being imprisoned for organizing anti-government demonstrations has been detained, his wife said Wednesday.

Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front movement, served a 4.5-year term for spearheading anti-Kremlin demonstrations on the eve of President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration on May 6, 2012. 

He was released in early August but was summoned by investigators last week, reportedly as a witness in an ongoing probe into the 2012 protests, which ended in violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement. 

On Wednesday, the activist stood “near” the State Duma building in central Moscow, in a one-man picket demanding a sweeping amnesty for prisoners in honor of the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Anastasia Udaltsova told the Interfax news agency. 

Udaltsov later on Wednesday said on Twitter he had been released from the Tverskoi detention center, adding police had "admitted it had been a misunderstanding."

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