Russian Activist Ildar Dadin Detained Again in Moscow

Russian activist Ildar Dadin has been detained at a demonstration in Moscow just weeks after being released from prison on charges of illegal protesting.

Dadin was detained Friday morning during a one-man picket outside of the Federal Penitentiary Service headquarters in central Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported Friday.

He had been protesting alongside fellow activist Lev Ponomarev for the dismissal of Alexander Terekh, the head of sentence enforcement for the prison service in Russia's northern Karelian Republic.

Ponomarev is continuing to protest at the scene, Interfax reported.

Police officers approached Dadin during the protest and asked to see his documents.

One-man protests are permitted in Russia without official approval, although police officers are still permitted to inspect the individual's papers. Dadin was detained by officers when he refused to show his documents to officers on the scene. 

Dadin was the first Russian jailed under controversial anti-protest laws in 2014. The legislation targets demonstrators who repeatedly commit offenses such as protesting without a licence from the Russian government.

The activist was initially imprisoned in Karelia, where he accused prison guards of torturing him and fellow detainees.

The Federal Penitentiary Service claimed that a internal investigation found no proof of Dadin's claims, but transferred the prisoner to a facility to Russia's eastern Altai region.

The activist was released in Feb. 22, 2017, when Russia's Supreme Court decided that charges against him should be dropped. Judges ruled on Wednesday that while the law was legal under the Russian constitution, it should only be used against protesters who "posed a threat" to Russian society. 

They confirmed that Dadin — who was jailed for 2.5 years under the law — had been a "peaceful" protester.