Barbed wire and black humour: Russian activists line up for protest tattoos

A tattoo artist works during a ceremony opening an exhibition of drawings of prison-style tattoos by Oleg Navalny, brother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in Moscow, Russia September 3, 2019. REUTERS/Polina Ivanova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ivan Loktev, a young Russian opposition activist, wanted a memento of a string of protests that have drawn tens of thousands to Moscow's streets this summer, and the crackdown that ensued. So on Tuesday, he got himself tattooed.

The image, inked onto his chest, is based on a famous 1989 photograph of a Chinese protester facing down a line of tanks on Tiananmen Square. He hopes it will serve as a reminder that dozens of his peers are facing jail time for taking part in Moscow's biggest sustained protest movement since 2011-2013.