(dpa) - More than 50 opposition demonstrators detained by police in Moscow for participating in an unauthorised rally against the election of President Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev were released Tuesday, local media reported.
Nikita Belykh, leader of the small free-market Union of Right Forces party, and Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent human rights activist, were given a fine, Ponomaryov's daughter Yelena Lipzer, an attorney, told Interfax news agency.
On Monday, parallel protests were held in Moscow and St Petersburg, where more than 1,000 activists gathered, to highlight Sunday's election day accusations of bias media coverage and impossible conditions for candidate registration.
Medvedev's landslide win with 70.1 per cent of the vote, beat out his nearest opponent by more than a 50 per cent margin.
But critics charged that Sunday's vote was an unacceptably heavily Kremlin-orchestrated plan to transfer power to Putin's hand-picked successor while opening a path for Putin to retain power.