AFP - Russian dissident Ludmila Alexeeva and radical leftist leader Eduard Limonov were arrested by police Thursday in central Moscow during an opposition rally, an AFP photographer said.

Anti-riot police arrested the 82-year-old Alexeeva, one of this year's recipients of the European Parliament's Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, after they received orders by walkie-talkie to "pick her up."

Police confirmed that around 30 participants had been arrested, also including the founder of the outlawed National Bolshevik Party, Eduard Limonov, according to a Moscow radio station.

"I didn't have time to open my mouth, I just made a hand signal," said Alexeeva on the radio, shortly after her arrest.

"I have no idea why I was arrested. Usually, they (the police) write in the statement that I resisted" the forces of law and order, she added.

"They offered to release me, but I refused, demanding that they release all those in police vans," the 82-year-old said.

The protesters were arrested in Triumfalnaya Square, central Moscow, as they began shouting slogans and showing placards which read "Putin behind bars!"

Their gathering had been banned by Moscow's town hall.

On October 31 police arrested 50 opposition dissidents including Limonov as they tried to attend a in Moscow that had also not received approval from the city government.

Limonov was subsequently sentenced to ten days in prison for organising the rally.

In 1976, Alexeeva was a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights organisation currently active in Russia, which has been the object of a denigration campaign and arrests under the Soviet regime.

Alexeeva was forced to leave the USSR in 1977 and was exiled in the United States. She returned to Moscow in 1990.