The president of the European Parliament urged the Russian authorities on Friday to release a prominent Russian human rights activist arrested for an attempt to hold an unsanctioned protest in downtown Moscow.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, 82, a 2009 Sakharov Prize winner for freedom of thought, and other human rights activists were arrested on Thursday. Alexeyeva and other protesters attempted to hold a “March of Dissent” in central Moscow’s Triumphalnaya Ploshchad several hours before New Year.

“I am profoundly and personally touched when I think that this very respectful 82 year old woman spent the night of New Year's Eve under Russian arrest. I call on the Russian authorities to release her immediately,” Jerzy Buzek said.

On December 16, Buzek gave the European Parliament’s top human rights award to Alexeyeva and another two members of Russia’s Memorial, a non-governmental organization monitoring human rights abuses.

Buzek described the police action as “absolutely disproportionate.”

A Moscow police spokesman told RIA Novosti over 50 people had been arrested on Thursday night and freed later that day.

BRUSSELS/MOSCOW, January 1 (RIA Novosti)