Police in Moscow said they arrested 1,074 people on Saturday noon at a banned protest, which was organized by liberal Russian opposition figures, calling for places on the ballot ahead of September's Moscow city council elections.

Around 3,500 people took to the streets for the unauthorized rally, according to official figures, of whom 700 were working journalists.

Protesters tried to break through police lines around the capital's central Tverskaya Street, where the Moscow mayor's office is located. Police dispersed the protesters with batons, pushing them back onto side streets. Clashes continued for several hours at various points around the city center.

Saturday's protest followed an authorized rally seven days ago, which attracted between 12,000 police and 22,000 opposition figures. The rally was triggered by the confrontation between Moscow's election commission and opposition figures, in which the commission disqualified a number of independent candidates who hope to run in September's city council race, due to paperwork irregularities.

The protest leader Alexey Navalny was jailed on Wednesday and several other opposition members including Ivan Zhdanov, Lyubov Sobol, Dmitry Gudkov and Ilya Yashin had also been detained, but soon released with their hearings postponed for a week. Navalny had called for a march on City Hall, which was declared by authorities illegal, and didn't receive official approval.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin warned Muscovites beforehand not to participate, and authorities would act decisively against the risk of "serious provocations." Sobyanin also said "organizing riots will not lead to anything good" via Twitter, but protesters turned up anyway on Saturday and clashes broke out.

According to city official figures, there are 45 seats up for grabs and getting on the ballot requires collecting a certain number of signatures from voters in the constituency that the candidate seeks to represent. Authorities said they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support and the election commission totally disqualified 57 people and registered 233 as candidates.

(With input from agencies)