Rival to Putin is arrested amid protests urging election boycott
● Police raid office of opposition chief ● Public-order violation looms
Russian police have raided the Moscow office of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as demonstrations calling for a boycott of the country’s presidential election take place across the country.
Mr Navalny was subsequently detained by police en route to an unauthorised protest rally in Moscow.
He is expected to be charged with a public-order violation.
That charge could bring a punishment of 20 days in jail.
Video on his Youtube channel showed Mr Navalny struggling with police before they pushed him to the ground and then into a bus.
Mr Navalny had called for nationwide demonstrations yesterday to support a boycott of Russia’s 18 March presidential election in which Vladimir Putin is seeking a fourth term.
Mr Navalny has been barred from running in the election.
He was seized by police while walking to the Moscow protest. Russian news reports cited police as saying he was likely to be charged with violating a law on calling public demonstrations.
Mr Navalny had called on supporters to continue the demonstrations despite his arrest. He said on Twitter: “They have detained me. This doesn’t mean anything… you didn’t come out for me, but for your future.”
The opposition leader later posted: “The detention of one person is meaningless if there are many of us. Someone, come and replace me.”
A video stream yesterday morning from Mr Navalny’s headquarters showed police entering the office.
One broadcaster on the stream said police apparently were using a grinder to try to get access to the broadcast studio. The anchors said police had come because of a bomb threat.
One anchor, Dmitri Nizovtsev, was detained by police during the raid. Mr Navalny’s Moscow co-ordinator Nikolai Lyaskin also was detained yesterday.
Sizeable gatherings have been reported in Russia’s far east and Siberia, including one in remote Yakutsk where the temperature reportedly was minus -45C. More followed in Moscow and St Petersburg yesterday afternoon.
A crowd police estimated at 1,000 people assembled in central moscow’s pushkin square, brandishing placards reading “they’ve stolen the election from us” and “elections without Navalny are fake”. Several hundred demonstrators assembled on the centre square of the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, complaining both about Mr Putin and of the exclusion of Mr Navalny.
The OVD-INFO group, which monitors political arrests, reported scores of demonstrators had been detained at protests in cities including Murmansk, Ufa and Kemerovo.
Mr Navalny was prevented from running because of his conviction on an embezzlement charge in a case widely seen as politically motivated. Vladivostok demonstrator Dmitri Kutyaev said: “They took these elections away from us, they took away our votes. Our candidate was not allowed to run.”
Mr Navalny rose to prominence with detailed reports about corruption among top Russian officials, which he popularised on social media to circumvent state control of television.
Last year, he called for two demonstrations, which attracted people throughout the country, undermining critics’ claims he appeals only to a narrow segment of prosperous urbanites.
Mr Navalny has insisted he would beat Mr Putin in a fair fight. The opposition leader led mass street protests against his rival in the winter of 2011/12.
He was arrested three times last year for organising unauthorised anti-putin protests.
Mr Putin, who refuses to mention Mr Navalny by name, retains a massive approval rating in Russia and is widely expected to win a fourth sixyear term in office.