Opposition leader Alexei Navalny detained amid protests across Russia

Extract from The Guardian

Crowds gather in cities to protest against corruption in largest anti-government rallies for five years, with hundreds held

Alexei Navalny is arrested at a rally in Moscow soon after arriving at the protest. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Shaun Walker and Alec Luhn in Moscow

Monday 27 March 2017 04.07 AEDT 

Hundreds of protesters have been detained by riot police in cities across Russia, as some of the largest anti-government protests in years swept the country.
The call to protest came from the opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who was himself detained at the Moscow demonstration. A monitoring group said at least 700 people were detained in Moscow alone, while the news agency Tass gave a figure of 500.

Police said about 7,000 people attended the Moscow rally on Sunday, though the real number may have been much higher. The crowds surged down the length of the city’s main thoroughfare, Tverskaya. A police helicopter flew overhead and thousands of riot police were on duty across the city centre.
The size and scope of the demonstrations pose a challenge to the Kremlin, a year before elections in which Vladimir Putin is expected to win another six-year term.
Soon after arriving, Navalny was bundled into a police bus, which was unable to drive away for several minutes as crowds set upon it and tried to free him. Protesters even pushed parked cars in front of the bus to stop it moving, but were later beaten away by riot police. There were isolated clashes with riot police and shouts of “shame” and “Russia will be free”.
The protests were ostensibly a demand for answers to a video made by Navalny and his team about corruption linked to the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. The video, which alleges that Medvedev has amassed a collection of luxury mansions, yachts and vineyards, has been watched on YouTube more than 11m times. There has been no official response to the allegations except to dismiss them out of hand.
The gatherings in Moscow and most other Russian cities were denied official permission by police on a variety of pretexts. In Moscow, police moved to detain protesters who were shouting slogans or holding placards, those who were acting aggressively, or often simply at random.
The Guardian reporter Alec Luhn was among those detained, grabbed by riot police while photographing police detaining others. Police searched him, confiscated his phone and put him in a police bus, where he was held for two hours before being driven to a police station on the outskirts of Moscow with 16 other detainees. He was told he would be charged with “participating in an unsanctioned protest”, despite repeatedly telling police he was a journalist and showing Russian foreign ministry accreditation. He was released after more than five hours in detention, after the foreign ministry intervened.
Maxim Kryuchkov, 15, was also brought to the police station with Luhn. He said police knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the face, as he tried to hold on to a friend who was being detained. His nose looked broken and there was a cut on his neck.
Albert Komissarenko, an engineer who was passing the rally by chance, saw a man being punched by police. “I was angry and shouted, ‘shame’, and then they detained me too. They grabbed me and punched me twice in the back and pushed me into the police bus,” he said.
Komissarenko said that after his experience, he would attend the next rally as a participant. He said: “There was excessive, unfounded violence today. The regime is trying to intimidate everyone, not just those who fight against it.”
Navalny posted on Twitter: “Hi, everything is fine with me. I’m at the police station and we’re talking about the [Medvedev] film with the police. Keep up your peaceful walk, the weather is good.” His press secretary later said he was being held in prison overnight and would face a court hearing on Monday. Employees of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation were also detained at the organisation’s offices.
Sunday’s protests were subjected to a blackout on state media, which acted as if they were not taking place. However, in a worrying sign for the Kremlin, even in dozens of smaller cities across the country several hundred people came to protest. In Vladivostok in the far east of the country, police detained a number of protesters, while in St Petersburg, several thousand gathered on Palace Square, just a fortnight after the centenary of the revolution that deposed the last tsar in 1917.

Protesters in Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Utkin/AFP/Getty

As Russians continue to feel the pressure of a three-year economic downturn, the rampant corruption in government is a sore point for many Russians, even if Putin himself retains high approval ratings.
Sunday’s protests were some of the largest anti-government demonstrations since a wave of protests in 2011 and 2012 that followed Putin’s decision to return to the presidency after four years as prime minister, and a fraud-tinged parliamentary election.
That protest wave culminated with a large rally on Bolotnaya Square on 6 May 2012, the day before Putin’s inauguration. The protests turned violent, police cracked down, and long trials of a number of protesters ended in prison terms.
Navalny has declared himself a candidate in next presidential elections due next March. Putin is expected to stand and win another six-year term, and sources close to the presidential administration say that after some discussion, a decision has already been taken not to allow Navalny to take part.
Navalny has spent the past weeks travelling around the country, recruiting volunteers in the regions to help him run his campaign. During the travels, he has had to contend with supposed bomb threats at venues, frequent demonstrations meant to disrupt his gatherings and even an assault in which green fluid was tossed over his head.
“Everywhere we’ve gone there have been people trying to disrupt it or throw eggs at us, and zero coverage from local papers, but still people have come,” Navalny told the Guardian last week. A photograph from his campaign stop in the town of Saratov on Friday showed several hundred people crowded into the room to listen to Navalny.
“They understand that Putin’s support is only based on a total lack of competition, and are doing everything they can to keep us quiet,” said Navalny.