Russian prosecutors back request to imprison Navalny as his wife fined for taking part in protests

Wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnya, arrives to attend a hearing at a court in Moscow

Credit: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Russia’s prosecutor general on Monday backed calls from Russia’s prison service to support a lengthy jail term for beleaguered opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

After a second weekend of nationwide protests, a court is expected to rule on whether to lock Mr Navalny up for three and a half years, converting a previous suspended sentence on fraud charges into a custodial one. 

Mr Navalny has called the charges politically motivated. The office of the prosecutor general said the demand by prison service was “lawful and founded.”

On Sunday, when thousands of people took the streets for the second straight weekend of protests, police detained more than 5,300 people in cities from east to the west all over Russia, according to OVD-info, an independent group that monitors arrests. 

One of them was Mr Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya. She was detained on Sunday near the infamous prison where her husband is being held. 

Ahead of Mr Navalny’s court hearing on Tuesday, Yulia Navalnaya was fined £200 for taking part in unauthorised protests in support of her husband.

Following the inflow of people, picked up at random in overcrowded paddy wagons, police departments in Moscow and in St Petersburg are reportedly overloaded due to the record number of detainees after the rallies. Human rights activists say that Moscow simply could not cope. 

In a number of cases, the detainees were not allowed to contact their lawyers, human rights activists said. The day after the arrests, detainees at a police station in St Petersburg reported that they were refused food, water and mattresses.

Protests even spread to Germany

Credit: REUTERS/Christian Mang

As a result of the protests on January 23 and January 31, 40 criminal cases were opened in 18 regions, head of human rights group Agora, Pavel Chikov, said on Monday. 

The criminal probes involve violence against the police, hooliganism. Some of the protesters who attended the rallies could be jailed for years and sentenced to up to five years in prison.

The sweeping crackdown on the opposition following Mr Navalny’s return did not prevent protesters from turning out in vast numbers despite the risk of prosecution. 

“I saw that many people came out last week, I’m not afraid. These protests are not only about Navalny, but about the lawlessness we live in," Nadezhda, a first time protester, said on Sunday.  !I don’t support him, but if a Russian citizen faces being jailed for a long time after returning home we need to stop that from happening."