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Navaln’s team has called for rallies to be held across the country and is demanding that the opposition leader be released from the remand center, where he is awaiting trial, which will begin on February 2.
This week, several of Navaln’s comrades, including lawyer Liubov Sobol and his brother Oleg, were placed under house arrest until the end of March for alleged violations of restrictions on the coronavirus by urging people to demonstrate.
Russian authorities have issued several warnings urging them not to attend unauthorized demonstrations and threatening to press criminal charges against the protesters.
Unprecedented measures have also been taken: Moscow police have said that seven metropolitan stations will be temporarily closed and pedestrian traffic will be restricted in the center of the capital.
Moscow authorities have also announced that some restaurants and shops in the city center will be closed and, as in the center of the capital, public transport routes will be changed.
Police arrested Navalna, 44, at one of Moscow’s airports on January 17, less than an hour after the opposition returned to Russia from Germany, where he was being treated for a nerve paralyzing substance after the poisoning last summer. A critic of the Kremlin claims that the Federal Security Service (FSB) tried to poison him on Putin’s instructions. The Kremlin denies any connection to the incident.
The Russian Prison Service (FSIN) later said it had arrested Navalna for violating the terms of a probation sentence imposed on him in a 2014 fraud case. The opposition itself considers the case politically motivated.
The court ordered that Mr. Navalna be detained for 30 days at a hearing at the Khimki police station, a Moscow suburb. Officials explained that the meeting was held at the compound because Mr. Navaln allegedly did not have a valid COVID-19 test result.
The planned rally in Moscow on Sunday will be held at the headquarters of the FSB, Russia’s main security agency.
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