MOSCOW (AP) – A senior ally of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday announced a new anti-government protest, urging residents of large cities to briefly gather in residential courtyards this weekend with the mobile phone flashlights on.
Navalny strategist Leonid Volkov said the protest will begin at 8 a.m. Sunday and last 15 minutes. The new format of the rally, similar to the tactics of opposition supporters employed during protests in neighboring Belarus, could prevent Russian riot police from interfering and allowing everyone to participate, Volkov wrote in a Facebook post.
The protest will coincide with Valentine’s Day and Volkov headlined his ad: “Love is stronger than fear.”
“You will raise the lanterns of the phone – and someone, perhaps, will carry candles – and you will form a heart shape with them … I will take a photo from above, from one of the apartments, and you will post it on Instagram. Let’s have channels “social information full of thousands of bright hearts from dozens of Russian cities,” Volkov wrote. “Without OMON (riot police), without fear.”
Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested on January 17 on his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nervous breakdown blamed on the Kremlin. . Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
His arrest and imprisonment sparked protests across the country, and tens of thousands of people gathered across Russia for two consecutive weekends during the greatest discontent in recent years.
Russian authorities responded with harsh repression. More than 11,000 people have been arrested and hundreds of people have been sentenced to prison. Several close allies of Navalny face criminal charges and are under house arrest.
Last week, a Moscow court ruled that while Navalny was recovering in Germany, he violated the parole conditions of his suspended sentence of a 2014 money laundering conviction and ordered him to serve two and eight years. months in prison. Even before this ruling, Navalny rejected the 2014 political persecution of conviction and the European Court of Human Rights considered it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”.
In the wake of heavy police crackdowns, Volkov said protests should stop until spring, as trying to hold rallies every weekend would only lead to many more arrests.
However, on Tuesday he cited the need to “adopt something stronger than fear” of repression and to make a demonstration that police would not be able to derail.
“We have already become the majority, but Putin divides us by cords (riot police) so we can’t see each other and see how many of us we are. We have to find a way to overcome it, “Volkov wrote.
Asked whether the opposition’s call to gather in the courtyards could be considered an incitement to unauthorized protests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “difficult to say”, but assured reporters that if someone in Russia breaks the law, law enforcement will hold them accountable. .
Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment escalated tensions between Russia and the European Union. European leaders demanded the release of the opposition leader and the Kremlin has said it will not listen to Western criticism of Navalny’s conviction and police action against his supporters.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday accused Navalny’s allies of being “agents of influence” in NATO and changed their minds to pause protests after receiving instructions. of the members of the blog “on how to be” smarter “to continue with the subversive work”.
Zakharova noted an online conference with EU, U.S. and UK officials in which Volkov and another Navalny partner, Vladimir Ashurkov, attended Monday.
Volkov said on Twitter on Monday that the event discussed sanctions against Russian officers and tycoons and called it a “painful place” for Russian officers.