Tens of thousands join protests in support of Russian opposition leader Navalny

Tens of thousands took to the streets across Russia on Sunday to demand the release of President Vladimir Putin. put in prison Opposition Leader Alexey Navalny, holding nationwide protests that have upset the Kremlin. According to a control group, more than 4,700 people were detained by the police and some were beaten.

Russian authorities have made a tremendous effort to turn the tide of demonstrations after tens of thousands of people across the country gathered last weekend in the largest, most widespread display of discontent Russia had seen in years. Despite threats of jail time, warnings to social media groups and tight police cordons, protests again engulfed cities across Russia’s 11 time zones on Sunday.

Navalny’s team quickly called another protest in Moscow on Tuesday, when he faces a court hearing that could send him to prison for years.

Navalny, 44, was an anti-corruption researcher who is Putin’s best-known critic arrested January 17 on his return from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve infection he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have dismissed the charges. He was arrested for alleged violation of his parole terms for failing to attend meetings with law enforcement authorities while on convalescence in Germany

The United States urged Russia to release Navalny and criticized the crackdown on the protests.

“The US condemns the continued use of harsh tactics against peaceful protesters and journalists by the Russian authorities for a second straight week,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Blinken’s appeal as “gross interference in Russia’s internal affairs” and accused Washington of destabilizing the country’s situation by backing the protests.

According to OVD-Info, a group that oversees political arrests, police detained more than 4,700 people in protests in rural towns on Sunday. more than 4,000 arrests at the demonstrations across Russia on January 23.

In Moscow, authorities have introduced unprecedented security measures in the city center, closing Kremlin metro stations, cutting bus traffic and ordering restaurants and shops to remain closed.

Navalny’s team initially called for Sunday’s protest to be held in Moscow’s Lubyanka Square, home of the federal security service headquarters, which Navalny claims was responsible for his poisoning. Opposite the police cordons around the square, the protest shifted to other central squares and streets.

Police randomly picked people up and put them in police buses, but thousands of protesters marched through the city center for hours, shouting “Putin, resign!” and “Putin, thief!” – a reference to a lavish Black Sea estate allegedly built for the Russian leader, featured in a very popular video released by Navalny’s team.

“I’m not afraid because we are the majority,” said Leonid Martynov, who took part in the protest. “We should not be afraid of clubs, because the truth is on our side.”

At one point, crowds of protesters walked to Matrosskaya Tishina prison where Navalny is being held. They were met by riot police phalanxes who pushed back the march and chased protesters through courtyards, holding scores and beating some with clubs. Still, protesters continued to march around the Russian capital, zigzagging around the police barriers.

Nearly 1,500 people were held in Moscow, including Navalny’s wife, Julia. “If we keep quiet, they will come after us tomorrow,” she said on Instagram before protesting.

Amnesty International said authorities in Moscow have arrested so many people that the city’s detention centers are running out of space. “The Kremlin is waging a war on the human rights of the people of Russia and stifling protesters’ calls for freedom and change,” Natalia Zviagina, the head of the group’s Moscow office, said in a statement.

Several thousand people marched through St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, saying “Down with the Tsar!” and occasionally scuffles broke out as some protesters pushed back the police who attempted to make arrests. More than 1,000 were arrested.

Some of the largest gatherings were held in Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk in Eastern Siberia and Yekaterinburg in the Urals.

“I don’t want my grandchildren to live in such a country,” said 55-year-old Vyacheslav Vorobyov, who stood up for a meeting in Yekaterinburg. “I want them to live in a free country.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde, currently chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, condemned “the excessive use of force by the authorities and the massive detention of peaceful protesters and journalists” and urged Russia “to release all those wrongfully detained, including Navalny.”

As part of a multiple effort by the authorities to block the protests, courts last week jailed Navalny’s employees and activists across the country. His brother Oleg, top assistant Lyubov Sobol and three other people were placed under house arrest for two months on Friday on charges of alleged violation of coronavirus restrictions during last weekend’s protests.

Prosecutors also demanded that social media platforms block calls to participate in the protests.

The Interior Ministry sternly warned the public, saying protesters could be charged with participating in mass riots, carrying a prison sentence of up to eight years.

The protests were sparked by a two-hour YouTube video released by Navalny’s team following his arrest over the Black Sea residence allegedly built for Putin. The video has been viewed over 100 million times and inspired a flood of sarcastic jokes on the Internet during an economic downturn.

Russia has seen extensive corruption during Putin’s tenure, while poverty has remained widespread.

Protesters in Moscow chanted “Aqua disco!” – a reference to one of the luxurious amenities in the residence, which also features a casino and a hookah lounge equipped to watch pole dancing.

Putin says that neither he nor his close relatives own the property. On Saturday, construction magnate Arkady Rotenberg, a longtime confidant of Putin and his occasional judo sparring partner, claimed that he owned the property himself.

Navalny fell into a coma on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20, and the pilot diverted the plane so that he could receive treatment in the city of Omsk. Two days later he was transferred to a hospital in Berlin. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, showed he had been exposed to the Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities have declined to open a full-fledged criminal investigation, claiming there is no evidence that he was poisoned.

Navalny was arrested immediately after returning to Russia earlier this month and sentenced to 30 days in jail at the request of the Russian Prison Service, which claimed he violated his suspended sentence in a 2014 money laundering conviction that he dismissed as political revenge. .

On Thursday, a Moscow court dismissed Navalny’s appeal to be released, and another hearing on Tuesday could convert his 3 1/2 years suspended sentence into one that he will serve in prison. Navalny’s team called for another protest outside the courthouse.