On Monday, April 30, Moscow court sanctioned the arrest of a prominent Russian opposition and antifascist activist, Alexei Gaskarov, over last year’s May 6 mass riots.

      Gaskarov, a member of the opposition’s Coordination Council, was ordered to remain in custody for five months after investigators accused him of leading a group of hooded protesters in the violent scuffles that took place on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president last year.

      The Investigative Committee maintains that during the unrest on the square that day, Gaskarov also “used violence against a policeman, obstructing him from performing his duty to detain aggressive people.”

      Gaskarov has dismissed all the accusations and even cited as evidence of violence against him pictures and videos from the scene showing him bleeding.

      Hundreds of people were detained on May 6 last year when the authorized anti-Kremlin rally ended in clashes between the demonstrators and police. Gaskarov is expected to become the 28th protester to be implicated in the string of cases opened over the May 6 rally, which has been widely criticized as a Kremlin clampdown on the opposition movement.