Hundreds of inmates were yesterday staging a sit-in at a prison in Russia's Urals region, occupying a corridor and unfurling a rooftop banner pleading for help.
The inmates at the prison in Kopeisk in the Chelyabinsk region started their action on Saturday to demand better conditions and the release of prisoners from solitary confinement.
About 250 inmates have since kept up a sit-in in the corridor of the accommodation block, said the local directorate of Russia's Federal Service for the Execution of Punishment (FSIN).
Television images from the scene showed that a large group of inmates had also made it up to the roof of the prison and at night unfurled a banner reading: "People, Help!"
The Chelyabinsk FSIN said: "They have made illegal demands for a relaxation of the confinement conditions and the release of convicts from punishment isolation cells."
Police said they detained 30 people outside the prison for drunken behaviour and swearing as relatives of the prisoners and ex-convicts gathered overnight.