YEKATERINBURG, May 16. /TASS/. As many as 96 people have been detained since the beginning of authorized protests in downtown Yekaterinburg, where St. Catherine’s Cathedral is planned to be rebuilt, the regional branch of the Russian Interior Ministry said on Thursday. A source in the city’s Verkh-Isetsky District Court told TASS that 21 of them had been arrested.

According to police, 26 protesters were detained on May 14 and another 70 on May 15. Spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s Sverdlovsk Region Branch Valery Gorelykh said that three teenagers had been among those detained on May 15.

The court source told TASS that as of 15:00 local time (10:00 GMT), 21 people had been arrested for the period of two to ten days for violating rules for public meetings, protests and rallies.