16 arrested at Women's Day rally in Moscow

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MOSCOW, March 8 (UPI) -- Sixteen people were arrested Friday for shouting unauthorized slogans at a permitted rally in Moscow to celebrate International Women's Day, police said.

Organizers halted the rally and asked everyone to leave when the arrests started, RIA Novosti reported.

The rally, under the slogan "Feminism is Liberation," was organized by the Yabloko or Russian United Democratic Party.

"A rally, which had been agreed on with the authorities, took place on Friday in Novopushkinsky Square, involving around 100 people," the Interior Ministry said in a news release. "At the end of the really, a group of citizens showed up who shouted slogans that had not been agreed on and who broke the rules of conducting rallies."

Also Friday, picketers carrying out a series of one-person demonstrations held signs outside the offices of the Federal Penitentiary Service calling for the release of the two imprisoned members of the punk-rock group Pussy Riot. An Orthodox Christian youth group held a counter-demonstration with Bible readings.