Russia Seeks Up to 6 Years for anti-Putin Protesters

Russian prosecutors on Wednesday demanded harsh jail sentences of five to six years for eight protesters on trial for a rally in 2012 ahead of Vladimir Putin's inauguration.

Several participants in the protest on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, have been on trial since last June, accused of "mass riots" and hitting police after the rally turned violent.

Rights groups have said the violence was provoked by the police and call the case politically motivated.

Prosecutors asked Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky district court to jail two of the protesters, Sergei Krivov, 52, and Alexandra Naumova, 20, for six years for using violence against the police and calling for mass riots.

Protesters Andrei Barabanov, Alexander Polikhovich, Artyom Savyolov, Stepan Zimin and Denis Lutskevich should be jailed for five years and six months, while Artyom Belousov for five years, prosecutors said, Russian news agencies reported.

Most of those on trial have been under arrest since 2012. The mass riot probe has already seen one person sentenced to four-and-a-half years on similar charges and a second committed to a psychiatric hospital.

The case previously included four more people but they qualified for a Kremlin-backed general amnesty last month because they had only been charged with participation in mass riots.

Protesters on May 6, 2012, marched through central Moscow to assemble near a stage on Bolotnaya Square. However clashes began after police blocked the passage of the rally, resulting in mass confusion and panic.

Defense lawyers have said that evidence used in the case, which includes video, does not back up accusations of violence against policemen.

One of the defendants, Belousov, is accused of throwing a lemon at riot police.

Human rights groups have accused Russia of using excessive force at the demonstration, misclassifying it as "mass riots" and disproportionately punishing the participants.

"It's a totally disproportionate sentence, on a totally disproportionate charge," Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch group's deputy director in Europe, told Agence France Presse.

Amnesty International classified six of the eight people on trial as prisoners of conscience and urged Russia to drop all the "purported mass riots" charges against the defendants.