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© AFP / Maxim Zmeyev
Protesters attempt to break through a police cordon during an unauthorised rally in downtown Moscow, on July 27, 2019.

A standoff quickly escalated when protesters, who had sought to stage a rally outside the Moscow mayor's office, defied police orders to disperse. On Tverskaya Street, where the office is located, law enforcement personnel were assaulted with pepper spray.

"The gas was sprayed from above, probably from one of the balconies of a nearby building," a police source told TASS. The officers even had to wear gasmasks for a period of time, the Russian media reported.

Six officers were injured in the incident, according to media reports. Two other police officers suffered injuries in separate incident, police said, without providing any further details.

In a separate incident, protesters also pelted officers with stones and sought to break through a police cordon on several occasions. The demonstrators blocked several streets in the city center near the mayor's office, and vandalized some outdoor dining areas, according to TASS.

The police had to respond by forcibly dispersing the crowd. Almost 300 people were detained following the initial clashes by 15:20 (local time) (12:20 GMT), police said in a statement. Some activist groups claimed, though, that the number of those arrested exceeded 500 at that time. Most of those detained were not Moscow residents, according to police.

Over 3,500 people took part in the action in defiance of a ban by the Moscow authorities. Following the clashes with police, the protesters retreated from the Tverskaya Street and moved to the Trubnaya Square, also in the city center, where they attempted to stage another unsanctioned rally. A group of protesters briefly blocked part of the Garden Ring (Sadovoye Koltso), a ten-lane transport artery.

The police moved in seeking to disperse the crowd. More than 1,000 people were detained following the Saturday protests, the police said in a statement. At least 10 people were detained during the follow-up action. Earlier, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin warned Muscovites that the rally could be used for provocations, and advised citizens not to attend.

The protest organizers apparently planned provocations at the Saturday rally all along, said a member of the presidential human rights council, Kirill Kabanov. "The provocations ... were prepared in advance. They were needed to give the protests a flavor favorable towards the organizers," he told the Russian media.

Saturday's protest was called by an opposition activist, Aleksey Navalny, during another demonstration last weekend, which was sanctioned by the Moscow authorities. He was detained on Wednesday and sentenced to a 30-day administrative arrest for organizing an illegal event. Some other opposition activists were also detained either before or during this Saturday's rally.

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I have operated for over a decade on Facebook and Twitter openly under the pen name "Tony Cartalucci." This is not in any conceivable way "inauthentic behavior," though Facebook never does explain what they defined as "inauthentic behavior."

Facebook also revealed that "civil society organizations" aided them in their efforts to censor my work. Facebook in their statement claims:

We identified these accounts through an internal investigation into suspected Thailand-linked coordinated inauthentic behavior. Our investigation benefited from information shared by local civil society organizations.

I can only assume - since no specific organization was mentioned - that they are the same US-funded fronts I regularly expose through my work. This is particularly ironic since most of these organizations pose as "rights advocates," yet voluntarily aided a corrupt foreign corporation in carrying out censorship.

Facebook claims that my account was not taken down because of the content I published, but produced several examples of my content to make their case. They also attempt to associate me with Russian-based New Eastern Outlook to bolster their case and obviously once again referring to the nature of my content.

While I do contribute to New Eastern Outlook, Facebook never makes it clear how this is grounds for deleting my account.

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