Thursday, January 28, 2021
After a house search
Navalny's brother arrested
While Alexei Navalny is in custody, masked police officers in Moscow search not only his apartment, but also two others. His brother and two confidants are arrested on a flimsy pretext.
During raids against relatives and employees of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, his brother, among others, was arrested. The 37-year-old Oleg Navalny was initially in custody for 48 hours, said Navalny's employee Ivan Zhdanov on Twitter late on Wednesday evening. The reason given was a violation of corona hygiene requirements, wrote Nawalny's team on Telegram. The lawyer Lyubow Sobol, a close confidante and colleague of Alexej Navalny's, as well as an employee of Navalny's anti-corruption foundation were arrested.
Masked uniformed men had searched the offices and private homes of the opposition politician's family and employees since the afternoon – apparently the allegation here too was hygiene violations. The family's Moscow apartment, one of Navalny's wife Julia and that of his press spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch were searched. The opposition team criticized the fact that some police officers used force to gain access to the apartments and that lawyers did not allow themselves to see the accused or did so too late.
Nawalny's brother had already been sentenced to a long prison term in 2014. Navalny accused the state of taking Oleg hostage in order to put him under pressure himself. The most recent wave of searches came the day before a court was about to rule on Alexei Navalny's 30-day prison sentence. Navalny's lawyers want to get the 44-year-old released in the Khimki City Court near Moscow on Thursday.
Hundreds of thousands are protesting for release
Navalny's organization fights against corruption in the Russian power apparatus and in the past had to accept searches and seizures of computers in the various offices. For the first time this month, Navalny had set himself up for President Vladimir Putin in one of his highly acclaimed unveiling films – and ascribed a huge palace on the Black Sea to him, financed by bribes. Putin said he had nothing to do with the billion-dollar property featured in the 95 million-view film "A Palace for Putin".
Nawalny's team announced that they want to continue the mass protests for the release of Putin's opponent next Sunday – regardless of what the court now announces. Because a decision will not be made until February 2nd whether Nawalny's previous suspended sentence – as required by the prison system – will be converted into real detention. He is also facing further lawsuits and many years in prison. During the protests in more than 100 Russian cities last Saturday, according to organizers, up to 300,000 people demanded the release of Navalny. The civil rights portal OWD-Info counted almost 4,000 arrests at the unauthorized rallies.
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