Twenty-eight students were taken into custody by Russian police during a photography exhibition at a park in St Petersburg, according to the human rights portal ovdinfo.org.
The young people were taken to the police station on Saturday night and held for hours; two of them had to stay overnight.
The reason for the detentions given by police officers was that they had allegedly received complaints. Participants reported that officers were particularly interested in two works that dealt with the Orthodox church as well as the Russian police.
It was not clear if the students will now face punishment.
The officers’ actions were criticized by activists as disproportionate. The magazine Doxa quoted one participant as saying that the exhibition wasn’t a political event.
“Broadly speaking, the people were having a picnic and hanging up their photos there,” the magazine quoted them as saying.
Source: GNA