Toy story - this is how they protest in Russia

The figurines carry placards critical of Russian politics. Picture: Courtesy of Ivan Krupchik / ivan-krupchik.livejournal.com Source: Supplied

AUSSIE activists should count themselves lucky they don't live in Siberia because god only knows what the Russian police would have done if they had mobbed a prime minister there.

Because protests in the Siberian city of Barnaul are guaranteed to incur the wrath of authorities, no matter how small - quite literally.

Police have asked prosecutors to look at ways of outlawing an anti-corruption protest manned soft toys, plastic penguins, Lego men and South Park figures, The Guardian newspaper reports.

Siberian cops have been taking down the particulars of the protesters. Picture: Courtesy of Ivan Krupchik

The 5cm-high toys hold placards with such slogans as "I'm for clean elections" and "A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin".

See more pictures of the miniature protest

The Guardian says the cops have even been taking down the protesters' details.

Barnaul's deputy chief of police Andrei Mulintsev told a press conference this week that he believed the protest was "an unsanctioned public event" and railed against "political opposition forces" who were "using new technologies to carry out public events ? using toys with placards at mini-protests".

Lyudmila Alexandrova, one of the protest organisers, said: "The authorities' attempt to limit citizens' rights to express their position has become absurd. We wanted to hyperbolise this attempt and show the absurdity and farce of officials' struggle with their own people."

Interest in the toy protest has been high but organisers say the reaction from the police has been absurd. Picture: Courtesy of Ivan Krupchik

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