Alexei Navalny, Enemy Of Vladimir Putin, Thrown In Jail On Way To Protest Rally In Moscow
Alexei Navalny, a leading political enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was thrown in jail on his way to a protest rally Monday just hours after narrowly evading a jail term on what he called trumped up fraud conviction. Navalny’s brother, Oleg, was imprisoned and sentenced to a Russian labor camp on the same charge of embezzling about $800,000 from a French cosmetics company.
Alexei Navalny screams in court: “Why are you imprisoning my brother?” v @mediazzzona
— Ilya Mouzykantskii (@ilyamuz) December 30, 2014
Both brothers denied the charges and Navalny protested his brother’s sentence as “hostage taking” by the Putin government. Others also saw the move as nothing but a political ploy but Putin.
Classic Kremlin trickery: @navalny was long prepared for prison, but jailing his brother instead spares him martyrdom & reins him in further — max seddon (@maxseddon) December 30, 2014
The company that the Navalny brothers supposedly victimized, Yves Rocher, said that the pair had not committed any crimes. Navalny and his backers said that the verdict was simply retaliation by Putin and the Kremlin for anti-Putin political activities.
“Alexei Navalny is guilty of nothing more than daring to challenge Vladimir Putin’s corrupt, repressive government,” said Robert Herman, of the watchdog group Freedom House. “Any objective observer would say that the state’s case against him and Oleg would fail to pass muster in a fair and transparent judicial system.”
Navalny garnered about 27 percent of the vote in the most recent election for the important post of Moscow mayor. The election was ultimately won by a Putin-backed candidate. But the popular and charismatic Navalny, seen below appearing relaxed alongside his wife and brother before Monday’s verdicts were read, is viewed as the lone opposition leader capable of seriously challenging Putin.
After the the verdicts against him and his brother were read on Monday, Navalny pledged to continue his battle against Putin.
“The authorities don’t deserve to exist. I call everybody to take to the streets,” he declared.
Alexei Navalny was given a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence and ordered confined to house arrest. When he announced on social media Tuesday that he was leaving his house to join a protest near Red Square against his brother’s sentence, Russian police arrested him.
Alexei Navalny, a lawyer by trade, has led a tireless crusade against corruption within the Russian government and best known for blasting the Putin-led United Russia Party as “the party of crooks and thieves.”
Navalny was already under house arrest on his conviction in 2013 for allegedly stealing state-owned timber valued as a half-million dollars. But Alexei Navalny maintains that the Putin government trumped up that charge against him as well.
