Russia is cracking down on Alexei Navalny’s nationwide network of activists, raiding the homes and offices of the imprisoned opposition leader’s associates in advance of planned protests to demand his release.
Navalny’s supporters have been arrested in St Petersburg and Voronezh, in central Russia, as well as in Dagestan, a mainly Muslim region in the south of the country.
In Moscow, police broke down the door of an independent student publication, Doxa, and raided the homes of four staff members. Natasha Tyshkevich, an editor, was charged with encouraging children to attend protests in support of Navalny, an offence punishable by up to three years in prison. Critics said that the move was part of a wider effort to silence anti-Kremlin media.
In Archangelsk, a city in Russia’s far north, Andrey Borovikov, one of the region’s best known Navalny supporters, also faces a three-year prison sentence after he was charged with distributing pornography by posting a music video by the German rock group Rammstein on social media.
“They’re charging me because on January 19, 2014, six and a half years ago, I posted a clip of the Rammstein video for the song Pussy. The clip is allegedly pornographic,” he said. Navalny’s younger brother, Oleg, and other key allies were also facing prison time on protest-related charges.
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In Murmansk, also in Russia’s north, Navalny’s regional headquarters were vandalised by attackers who sprayed swastikas on the walls. The incident happened shortly after Violetta Grudina, a Navalny activist, announced that she would run for the city council.
Analysts said that the Kremlin was wary of letting Navalny’s allies participate in even low-level political campaigns. Russia’s justice ministry has rejected a series of attempts by Navalny, 44, to register a political party that would be able to field candidates at elections. The applications were all turned down over “technicalities”.
The Kremlin critic’s supporters have said that they will name a date for new protests to call for his release when half a million people have indicated on the Free Navalny website that they will attend. More than 425,000 have signed up since the website was launched on March 23.
Ivan Zhdanov, the head of Navalny’s anti-corruption group, said that the protests would be the biggest since President Putin, 68, came to power in 2000.
Navalny was jailed for two and a half years in February on fraud charges that he and western countries said were politically motivated. He was arrested after returning to Moscow from Berlin, where he had spent five months recuperating from a near-deadly attack with a nerve poison.
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He accused Putin of ordering the attempt on his life, an allegation that the Kremlin rejects. He has been on hunger strike since the end of last month to force prison officials to allow him to be visited by a medical specialist of his own choosing — something to which he is entitled under Russian law.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, said this week that he was weak and had lost 35lb since his arrest. “I’ve never seen skin so tight around one’s skull,” she said.
Staff at the IK-2 prison camp, east of Moscow, have reportedly threatened to force-feed him.
