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“I don’t know what to entertain you with here. My life recently is police stations, courts and searches,” Yulia Navalnaya wrote in a post on Instagram.
“I’m reading all your messages and understand that so many good, strong and decent people support Alexei and me that we shouldn’t give in and be afraid. We’ll win anyway.”
“A huge thank you to all of you for coming out (to the streets), for writing and asking how I am. I’m okay.”
Navalny’s allies accuse the police of essentially outlawing public protest and of using disproportionate force and violence to break up rallies and stifle their campaigning.
On Wednesday, a court jailed Sergei Smirnov, editor-in-chief of independent outlet Mediazona that has covered the protests in detail, for 25 days after finding him guilty of repeatedly flouting protest legislation.
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State investigators also charged Navalny’s brother Oleg, an activist and a member of the Pussy Riot punk group with breaching COVID-19 regulations over a protest on January 23, the RIA news agency reported.
The Kremlin said the police’s response at Tuesday evening’s protests had been justified because the protests were illegal and unauthorised. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Navalny’s allies of deliberately provoking the police by calling protests near the Kremlin following the ruling.
“The police reaction was due to the threats that could have arisen from staging such a protest,” he told reporters on a conference call. “The provocations comprise of the fact that there were calls yesterday for unsanctioned protests.”
Navalny’s allies have circulated footage of scenes they say show police violence, including one clip in which a riot police officer strikes a cameraman with a truncheon, flooring him.
Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the incident was the subject of an internal investigation.
Thousands are protesting across Russia in support of Alexei Navalny. Credit:AP
The West has called on Moscow to release Navalny, but Russia has told it stay out of its sovereign affairs.
“The hysteria we’ve heard over the legal process for the Navalny case is of course off the scale,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The mood on the snowy streets of Moscow was mixed.
“I’m not much excited by either our authorities’s actions or those of Navalny,” said Maxim, who did not give a surname.
“People are tired, people aren’t fools… as for the police actions, they really are animals. The situation is indirectly repeating the Belarus scenario,” said Danila, 25.
Reuters
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