Published 17:21 IST, February 1st 2021
Over 5,000 Russians arrested over demonstrations demanding Navalny's release
Russians congregated in thousands on January 31 in fresh demonstrations, according to a group that monitors political arrests, OVD-Info, confronting the police.
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Russia’s Special Purpose Police Units OMON Sunday arrested more than 5000 pro-Navalny protesters as the nationwide rallies strengthened in demand to free Kremlin’s jailed anti-corruption campaigner and Putin’s critic Alexey Navalny. A crowd in thousands congregated on January 31 in fresh demonstrations, according to a group that monitors political arrests, OVD-Info, confronting the law enforcement that "hauled off" the mob with lethal tactics. Sunday’s protests were organized for Lubyanka Square, where the Russian Federal Security Service that Kremlin critic alleged poisoned him, is headquartered. It was relocated to a public square a mile away due to heavy military police presence.
Fresh demonstrations: Call to release Navalny
In the wake of unauthorized detentions, and series of raids this past week at Navalny’s anti-corruption organization (FBK) , apartments and offices of Navalny’s family, friends, and associates, citizens planted one of the largest and widespread demonstrations against the Russian president Putin and the security forces. OMON held Navalny’s brother Oleg and top aide Lyubov Sobol with coercion under two-month house arrest in connection with unauthorized protests and allegedly flouting the COVID-19 protocols.
[A policeman detains a man while protesters try to help him, during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Credit: AP/file]
This wave of detention is something that worries us a lot, as well as the detention of Mr Navalny,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said as he arrived to chair the ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Russian law enforcement agents launched a political crackdown, snapping communication lines and issuing warnings against the public assembly. Despite Russian police’s threats of jail sentence, police cordons, and warnings to suppress the Sunday’s uprising, tens of thousands mobilized ‘unlawfully’ risking arrests for jailing Kremlin critic on his return from a five-month recuperation in Germany following poisoning from Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. To squash, the dissident movement against rampant corruption and Putin’s ‘autocratic regime’ protesters clashed with security forces shouting Putin and his cronies must be ‘jailed’.
“Under the Russian constitution, everyone in Russia has the right to express their opinion and to demonstrate. That must be possible. The principles of the rule of law must apply there, too — Russia has always committed itself to that," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a televised address.
Kremlin chief spokesman lashes out on TV
Kremlin chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov meanwhile lashed out on Russian state television at the leaders of the free world for flaring the demonstrations and interfering in Russia’s domestic affairs. Sunday’s protests saw police manhandling citizens in as many as 100 cities, as demonstrators expressed anger after footage of police officers kicking one woman to the ground, beating others mercilessly in St. Petersburg emerged. Reacting to Sunday’s arrests, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told broadcasters: "I find this slide toward authoritarianism very worrying. The affront to the rule of law posed by these collective and preventive arrests is intolerable."German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas berated Kremlin’s detention on German public television calling Police’s harsh tactics ‘worrying’.
“All light must be shed” on Navalny's poisoning. This was an assassination attempt," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France-Inter radio.
(Photographs Credit: The Associated Press)
17:23 IST, February 1st 2021