Sunday, October 08, 2017

Russians, Heeding Navalny’s Call, Mark Putin’s Birthday With Protest

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A crowd of mostly young people joined an antigovernment demonstration called by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow on Saturday. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MOSCOW — Answering a protest call issued from behind bars by the jailed Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, small crowds of mostly young people gathered in towns across Russia on Saturday in a wave of nationwide demonstrations. The protests were timed to coincide with the 65th birthday of President Vladimir V. Putin.
The turnout for the protests, which began in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East and then rolled westward throughout the day, was considerably smaller than in two previous days of nationwide rallies called by Mr. Navalny in March and June.
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The turnout for the protests was considerably smaller than in two rallies held earlier this year. A heavy police presence and fears of a harsh crackdown dampened the fervor of Mr. Navalny’s supporters. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But their geographical reach confirmed the anti-corruption campaigner as Mr. Putin’s best organized and most determined political foe.
In Moscow, torrential rain, a heavy police presence and fears of a harsh crackdown dampened the fervor of Mr. Navalny’s supporters, with only a few hundred people gathering in Pushkin Square in the center of the city to chant slogans against Mr. Putin and the corruption that has become an endemic feature of his increasingly authoritarian rule. In comparison, thousands had gathered in Moscow and other cities in the earlier days of protest Mr. Navalny, 41, had organized.
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Torrential rains soaked demonstrators in Moscow. Credit Mladen Antonov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Happy birthday Putin and goodbye,” youthful protesters chanted, mocking the Kremlin leader who if, as expected, wins a presidential election next year, will be over 70 when his term ends.
OVD-Info, a nonprofit organization, reported that more than 260 protesters had been arrested by early Saturday evening, a smaller number than during the previous, bigger protests organized by Mr. Navalny.
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Police officers blocked demonstrators in Moscow. Credit Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters.
Nonetheless, the crackdown seems to have been severe in some towns, particularly St. Petersburg, where at least 66 people were arrested, and photographs posted on social media showed protesters splattered with blood after their arrests.
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Mr. Navalny was absent from Saturday’s protests, having been sentenced earlier in the week to 20 days in prison for organizing unsanctioned rallies. The sentence appeared to be an attempt to halt Mr. Navalny’s efforts to organize protests in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
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A few hundred people gathered in Pushkin Square in the center of Moscow to chant slogans against Mr. Putin. Credit Mladen Antonov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But instead of abandoning his protest plans for Russia’s second biggest city, Mr. Navalny, in messages sent from prison, called on his supporters to take to the streets not only in that city but in others across the country to pressure authorities to let him compete in a presidential election scheduled for March.
“Navalny is our president,” protesters shouted in Moscow. “We are the power here.”
Opinion polls indicate that Mr. Putin would easily defeat Mr. Navalny in a presidential election, but the younger man’s ability to mobilize previously apathetic Russian youths, and his dogged investigation of corruption in Mr. Putin’s entourage, have clearly worried the Kremlin.
Unlike an older generation of Russian opposition leaders, dominated by veteran liberals and Soviet-era dissidents, Mr. Navalny has tapped into the concerns of Russia’s young people, using social media and other tools to expose the wealth and corruption of top level government officials in a series of popular videos.
Russia’s Central Election Commission has said that Mr. Navalny cannot legally run for president because of a prior criminal conviction for embezzlement in the theft of timber from a state company. Mr. Navalny has dismissed the embezzlement case as a trumped up political dispute.

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