More than 100 Navalny supporters arrested, monitoring group says

More than 100 supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were arrested during protests Sunday, a monitoring group said.

OVD-Info, a group that monitors protests in Russia, said in a statement that at least 109 people were detained as of Sunday evening. The protesters took to the streets on Navalny’s 47th birthday to call for the release of the opposition leader, who is serving more than 11 years in prison on charges of fraud and contempt of court.

Navalny, his supporters and many in the West maintain the charges were politically motivated and the prison sentence was aimed at silencing him.

“The Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) and other team Navalny’s projects announced worldwide rallies on his 47th birthday — calling for the release of Alexei and other political prisoners. We know of at least 109 people detained,” the organization said.

“Despite the unprecedented crackdown over the past 2 years, ACF was sure that there are still activists in Russia ready to protest openly — and they were right,” the statement added. 

The organization said at least two of the people detained are journalists and five are minors, one of whom has epilepsy. The organization said the detentions were “rife with illegal practices,” including not allowing those arrested to receive legal advice.

“The detentions were markedly rough and rife with illegal practices — in at least 3 police departments our affiliate lawyers were not let inside, in 8 departments police took away the detainees’ phones, depriving them of getting any legal advice or reporting their detention,” the organization said.

Protesters took to the streets in downtown Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities to show support for Navalny, who was arrested in January 2021.  

“The more there are such people, the smaller the price each has to pay,” he said. “And a day will certainly come when it will be routine and not dangerous at all to tell the truth and stand for justice in Russia,” Navalny wrote in a Twitter post.

The Associated Press contributed.