MOSCOW, May 28 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court on Thursday detained journalist and municipal lawmaker Ilya Azar for 15 days for repeated violation of the law concerning rallies, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

The journalist was arrested on Tuesday near the building of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate in central Moscow. Azar was staying in a sole picket in support of creator of the Police Ombudsman Telegram channel Vladimir Vorontsov, who had been earlier arrested on suspicion of extorting 300,000 rubles ($4,000) from a former Interior Ministry employee, and the channel’s admin Igor Khudyakov.

The lawmaker and his lawyer Leonid Solovyev claim that Azar's arrest and detention are illegal as a sole picket doesn’t breach legislation even during the sanitary and epidemiological restrictions.