MOSCOW (AP) – A top ally of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced a new anti-government protest on Tuesday, calling on residents of major cities to briefly gather in residential areas this weekend with their cell phone flashlights.
Navalny strategist Leonid Volkov said the protest will start at 8 p.m. on Sunday and will last 15 minutes. The new rally format – similar to the tactics used by opposition leaders during protests in neighboring Belarus – could prevent Russian riot police from intervening and allow anyone to participate, Volkov wrote in a Facebook post.
The protest coincides with Valentine’s Day, and Volkov called his announcement “Love is stronger than fear.”
“You light up your phone’s flashlights – and someone might bring candles – and make a heart with them … You take a picture from above, from one of the apartments, and post it on Instagram. Let’s get feeds on have social media filled with thousands of radiant hearts from dozens of Russian cities, “Volkov wrote.” No OMON (riot police), no fear.
Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested January 17 when he returned from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
His arrest and imprisonment sparked nationwide protests, with tens of thousands gathered across Russia for two consecutive weekends in the greatest deluge of discontent in years.
The Russian authorities responded with a crackdown. More than 11,000 people have been detained and hundreds have received prison sentences. Several of Navalny’s closest allies are facing criminal charges and are under house arrest.
Last week, a court in Moscow ruled that while Navalny was on recovery in Germany, he violated the probation of his suspended sentence of a 2014 money laundering conviction and ordered him to serve two years and eight months in prison. Even before that ruling, Navalny rejected the 2014 political prosecution conviction and the European Court of Human Rights called it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”
In the aftermath of the brutal police crackdown, Volkov said protests should end until spring, as trying to hold rallies every weekend would only lead to many more arrests.
On Tuesday, however, he mentioned the need to “adopt something stronger than fear” of repression and to hold a demonstration that would not derail the police.
“We have already become the majority, but Putin divides us through (riot police) cordons so that we cannot see each other and see how many of us are there. We have to find a way to fix that, ”Volkov wrote.
When asked if the opposition’s call to gather in courtyards could be seen as inciting unauthorized protests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “hard to say,” but assured reporters that if anyone in Russia violates the law, they will be held accountable by the police. .
Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment increased tensions between Russia and the European Union. European leaders demanded the release of the opposition leader, and the Kremlin has said it will not listen to Western criticism of Navalny’s conviction and police crackdown on his supporters.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday accused Navalny’s allies were “ agents of influence ” of NATO and had changed their minds about interrupting protests after receiving instructions from members of the bloc ‘to be’ smarter ‘to continue the subversive. work.”
Zakharova pointed to an online conference with officials from the EU, US and UK that Volkov and another Navalny employee, Vladimir Ashurkov, attended on Monday.
Volkov said on Twitter on Monday that sanctions against individual Russian officials and tycoons were discussed at the event, calling it “a painful place” for Russian officials.