MOSCOW, December 25 - RAPSI. Opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, who has been charged with instigating mass riots across Russia and sent to pretrial detention center in Chelyabinsk, has asked for permission to attend the upcoming appeal hearing in Moscow.

"I ask to ensure my personal participation in the appeal hearing over the extension of my arrest," Razvozzhayev wrote in a letter to the Moscow City Court where the hearing will be held.

He added that his transfer to Chelyabinsk is an attempt to put pressure on him.

His attorney Dmitry Agranovsky posted the letter on LiveJournal blog.

On October 19, the Investigative Committee placed Razvozzhayev on the federal wanted list. He was charged with organizing public unrest together with leftist activist Sergei Udaltsov and his aide Konstantin Lebedev.

The case against them was initiated after the broadcasting of the "Anatomy of Protest 2" documentary film on the NTV television channel.

The film claimed that the opposition was organizing a coup using funds from abroad and showed Udaltsov and his companions allegedly talking with Givi Targamadze, who at the time headed Georgia's Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee, and is said to have been involved in planning the "color" revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, as well as the mass riots in Belarus.

Earlier in December another criminal case was initiated against Razvozzhayev, this time on suspicion of illegally crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border in October.

Last Wednesday, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow extended his arrest until April 1.