BAKU, Azerbaijan — Police with batons beat back more than 1,000 demonstrators seeking to stage an unsanctioned rally in Azerbaijan's capital Baku on Saturday and detained three opposition leaders.
Dozens of people were clubbed, including 13 prominent opposition figures, two Parliament members and five reporters who covered the rally, according to the information center of the Musavat opposition party. At least one person was hospitalized, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
As police in green helmets and riot shields advanced, pushing back protesters, an Associated Press reporter saw three men left lying on the road, their heads and faces smeared with blood.
Opposition parties wanted to hold a rally in central Fizuli Square to demand that this fall's parliamentary elections be free of fraud and government intimidation of opposition groups. City authorities refused to allow the protest on Fizuli Square, but said they could gather at a raceway on Baku's northern outskirts.
Ignoring the refusal, a few hundred protesters broke through police cordons around Fizuli Square on Saturday, and police beat them back with batons. Some protesters threw rocks at the police, and many were singing Azerbaijan's national anthem and chanting "Freedom!"
The opposition crowd grew to at least 1,000, and spread to the nearby Palace of the Republic and the central bank headquarters. Scattered clashes continued throughout the evening, and streets downtown were closed for hours.
Police said 46 people were detained. Opposition leaders said they included Arif Gadzhiyev, secretary of the Musavat party, Panakh Guseinov, chair of the People's Party of Azerbaijan, and another prominent opposition leader, Fazil Gazanfarogly.
Azerbaijan's authoritarian President Geidar Aliev has been criticized by international human rights groups for cracking down on dissent and independent media in his former Soviet republic. His re-election in 1998 was boycotted by the opposition and called undemocratic by foreign observers.