While an opposition monitoring media says over 600 people were detained in Moscow's opposition protests, Russian Police said only 30 people were detained in a protest which was attended by only 350 people.

Iran Press/Europe: Russian police on Saturday detained 600 people attending a protest in Moscow to demand 'free elections', including activist Lyubov Sobol after the authorities warned the demonstration was illegal.

Police removed Sobol from a taxi and bundled her into a van minutes before the start of what anti-Kremlin activists described as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from an election next month, Moscow Times reported.

OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police had detained 600 people. Police said they had detained 30 people and 350 had attended the protest.

The focus of protesters' anger is a prohibition on a number of opposition-minded candidates, some of whom are allies of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, from taking part in a September election for Moscow's city legislature.

That vote, though local, is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.

Authorities say opposition candidates failed to collect enough genuine signatures to register. The excluded candidates say that it is a lie and insist on taking part in a contest they believe they could win.101/211/205