Russia: authorities multiply threats and arrests before pro-Navalny rallies
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh enters the Savyolovsky District Court ahead of his hearing.
Moscow, January 22, 2021. AFP - KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV
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The Russian authorities on Friday arrested new supporters of the jailed opponent Alexeï Navalny, on the eve of a day of demonstrations that the Moscow police have vowed to "suppress".
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Alexei Navalny's team, detained until at least February 15 and targeted by multiple legal proceedings, called for protests on Saturday January 23 in 65 cities to demand the release of the main enemy of the Kremlin.
But police in Moscow, the city where the most popular protests usually take place, have promised to “
repress without delay
” any unauthorized gathering, which they consider a “
threat to public order
”.
In addition, just like the day before, several collaborators of the opponent to Vladimir Poutin were arrested on Friday, in particular his coordinator from Vladivostok (Far East), that of Tyumen (Urals), a collaborator in Novosibirsk (Siberia), another in the Kaliningrad enclave (Baltic) and a lawyer in Ufa (Bashkortostan).
Media also reported the arrest in Novosibirsk of Sergei Boyko, who challenged the Kremlin party in regional elections in September.
Arrested Thursday, a rising figure of the movement, Lioubov Sobol, and Alexeï Navalny's spokesperson, Kira Iarmych, are due to appear before judges on Friday for calling for a protest.
The latter's lawyer told AFP that her client faced 10 days of detention.
Lioubov Sobol could escape imprisonment because she has a young child in her care.
The threats to this Saturday's rallies are not just local.
The prosecution and the Ministry of the Interior have also warned against participating in these gatherings.
Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also reiterated on Friday that such demonstrations were "
illegal
", suggesting a brutal intervention by the police.
Haro on social networks
The Russian telecommunications gendarme Roskomnadzor threatened the social networks with fines in the face of the multiplication of calls to demonstrate on Vkontakte (VK), the Russian equivalent of Facebook, but also and especially on Tik Tok.
Produced by very young Internet users, sometimes by high school students, since the beginning of the week these videos have been a phenomenal success on this platform acclaimed in Russia by teenagers and young adults, relates our correspondent in Moscow,
Daniel Vallot
.
According to the independent site Meduza, they have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
An unprecedented flood in Russia.
The concern is all the greater since the video of Alexei Navalny, who accuses
Vladimir Putin of corruption
, is also an unprecedented success: more than 50 million views in a few days.
Many personalities from the media and the entertainment world also relayed the video, asking in turn that the Russian opponent be released.
The boss of the international Russian state television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, for her part, accused "
Tik Tok, which belongs to the Chinese, of trying to orchestrate a war between children in Russia
".
She estimated that the company had the means to censor this content "
in two minutes
".
The fear of seeing many pupils and students coming to swell the ranks of the demonstrators on Saturday is very real: the Ministry of Education itself called on parents to "
take an interest in their children's projects and prevent them
" from joining gatherings.
■ The EU demands from Putin “
the immediate release
” of Navalny
This Friday, the President of the European Council Charles Michel announced that he had telephoned Russian President Vladimir Poutine to demand the “
immediate release
” of the opponent Alexeï Navalny.
The European leader expressed the "
serious concerns
" of the EU concerning Mr. Navalny and called for "
full and unconditional respect for his rights,
" said a statement released after this exchange.
Charles Michel, head of the body representing the Twenty-Seven, took the initiative to contact the Russian president the day after a European summit in order to renew the demand of the EU leaders for an immediate release of the Russian opponent.
Several member states and the
European Parliament are
demanding the adoption of new European sanctions.
(With AFP)
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Russia
Vladimir Poutine
Alexei Navalny