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The 44-year-old opposition team posted the event on Facebook and invited its supporters to meet in Moscow at noon (11am Lithuanian time) at the FSB headquarters in Lubyanka Square and Old Square, where the offices of the the presidential administration.
The team said the assembled protesters would hold marches through the capital from two squares in central Moscow, located on a street about a kilometer away.
“The direction of the march will be decided after assessing the situation,” the organizers wrote.
Last Saturday, police detained nearly 3.9,000 people during protests in more than 100 cities across the country. people, mainly in one day. The protesters demanded the release of A. Navalna and protested against the government.
Navaln was arrested on January 17 at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport less than an hour after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was being treated for his nerve paralyzing substance “Novičiok” after his poisoning last summer.
The opposition accuses the FSB of carrying out the attack on Putin’s instructions. The Kremlin categorically denies it.
Leonid Volkov, head of Navaln’s regional network, told AFP news organizers that the organizers had decided to gather the protesters at the FSB headquarters because “poisoners” worked there and in the presidential administration because “they decide to imprison or release to Navalna “.
“So of course we appeal to them,” Volkov said.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the protesters “lawbreakers” and the organizers of the demonstrations “terrorist”.
G-7 condemns “pathetic” arrest
L. Volkov had previously asked the Russians to take to the streets again and pressure the authorities to release A. Navalnas before the court hearing scheduled for February 2 on the charges against him for violating the conditions of the suspended sentence of 2014.
Mr. Navalns could be sentenced to more than three years in prison if the court decides to uphold the position of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) that the opposition violated the conditions of probation because he did not appear in Germany twice a month to check in. with the institution.
In a joint statement released on Tuesday, the G-7 foreign ministers – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – called Navaln’s arrest “deplorable” and called for his immediate and unconditional release. of the opposition.
At a press conference at the office of the Moscow-based anti-corruption foundation in central Moscow, his comrade in arms, opposition activist Liubov Sobol, said that people had gathered to protest last weekend because they were tired of “breaking the law in our country.”
She predicted that the protests would continue because “the Russians, sadly, simply have no other instrument to declare their rights.”
Russian authorities have quelled large-scale protests previously organized by the opposition by prosecuting protesters for acts of violence against law enforcement officials.
On Tuesday, a commission of inquiry investigating serious crimes said it had launched investigations into 20 people for “violence against government officials” at rallies on Saturday.
In a statement issued, the committee described several cases of alleged violence by protesters. According to the committee, during an incident in Moscow, the protester “hit the policeman several times on the head” and another protester obstructed the officer in a car.
Violence against government officials can result in up to 10 years in prison.
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