Moscow, 12 August 2021 (dpa/MIA) - Russian authorities have eroded the right to freedom of peaceful assembly to such an extent that is has become almost impossible for Russians to protest in any meaningful way, Amnesty International said on Thursday. "Authorities in Russia have eroded the right to freedom of peaceful assembly by using increasingly restrictive laws, and heavy-handed police tactics and criminal prosecutions to silence peaceful dissent," according to the report, issued ahead of parliamentary elections in Russia next month. The report - "Russia: No Place for Protest" - documents a clampdown on peaceful protests which Amnesty says began with the 2004 Federal Law on Assemblies and has accelerated in recent years. "Russian authorities have been curtailing the right to freedom of assembly with incredible persistence and inventiveness for years," Oleg Kozlovsky, the organization's Russia researcher, asserted. "As a result, peaceful street protest has come to be seen as a crime by state officials – and an act of heroism by those Russians who still believe it is their right to exercise it." "The unlawful restrictions, requirements and harsh sanctions that Russian protesters face can only be described as Kafkaesque in their absurdity. It has taken the Russian authorities 16 years and 13 instances of parliamentary tinkering with legislation to make the right to freedom of peaceful assembly devoid of any genuine meaning," Kozlovsky added. The report also details what Kozlovsky calls an excessive use of force by police officers, who have reportedly been documented "using martial arts techniques against protesters, battering them mercilessly with batons and, beginning this year, stunning them with electroshock weapons."