Russia. Moscow court rejects Navalny's appeal: Putin's opponent remains in prison

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January 28, 2021 Aleksei Navalny's appeal against his 30-day arrest on 17 January on his return home from Berlin was rejected by a Moscow court.

The judge ordered the opponent to remain in custody.

The Russian media and Navalny staff on social media report this.   

In a brief intervention from the Matrosskaya Tishina prison where he is being held, and from which he attended the hearing via video link, Navalny spoke of the demonstrators who took to the square last Saturday, and who are called to return to protest on Sunday, as "real" patriots of Russia, the barrier that prevents the country from sliding into complete degradation ".

The sentence confirming his pre-trial detention was handed down by the judge of the Moscow District Court Musa Musayev.

 The dissident until less than two weeks ago was in Germany, where he was hospitalized after a poisoning for which the 007 of the Kremlin are suspected.

He was arrested on his return to Russia because the prison service accuses him of not having presented himself to the supervisory judge in Moscow as provided for in a controversial 2014 ruling and asked to revoke the opponent's parole then granted.

Navalny thus faces three and a half years of imprisonment.

The Russian investigation committee said it had opened a criminal investigation against Navalny's chief strategist Leonid Volkov, accusing him of encouraging minors to participate in unauthorized demonstrations.

Russian opponent Aleksei Navalny denounced to the judge, in the appeal hearing against his detention, that since he was arrested on January 17, he has never been allowed a face-to-face interview with his lawyer.

Navalny contested his arrest, motivated by the Russian authorities with the violation of the terms of the conditional sentence imposed on him in an old trial for embezzlement, already branded as "politically motivated" by the Strasbourg Court.

Accusations denied by the opponent that it is true he did not appear for weeks at the Moscow surveillance judge, who controlled his probation, but because he was in Germany treating himself for the Novichok poisoning suffered this summer and for which he directly blamed the Kremlin.

In response to Navalny's requests, the judge granted him five minutes of private video conferencing with his lawyer. 

Forty-eight hours of pre-trial detention were arranged for several collaborators of Aleksei Navalny, his brother Oleg, lawyer Lyubov Sobol, and the director of the independent trade union Alliance of doctors, and Navalny doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, for alleged violations of health regulations against the spread of covid, a crime punishable by two years in prison and five if someone has caused the death.

The investigating committee has opened an investigation against Leonid Volkov, the regional coordinator of the political structure of Navalny, on charges of having involved minors in the protest in support of the opponent, who in the late morning of today appeared, on video from the Matrosskaya Tishina Prison, at the hearing for the appeal of the 30-day custody order.

Preliminary custody for 48 hours, for violation of anti-covid rules, also for the activist of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina.

Yesterday the homes of at least 15 other people from Navalny's entourage were searched.  

The media regulation agency, Rozkomnadzor, announced sanctions for social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and youtube) for not deleting hashtag posts related to the protests, as was asked last week. .