German government very concerned about arrests in Russia

The German government said it was very concerned about Russian police arresting more than 1,000 people in Moscow on Saturday around a protest to demand that opposition members be allowed to run in a local election.

"The German government expects the people who have been detained to be released quickly," a spokeswoman for the German government told a news conference on Monday.

It was one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin's tight grip on power.

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