We’ve all met shady businessmen who go on at length about their principals. And, when seeing the audience is unimpressed, switch to their more natural state. Politicians are masters at this art of swapping horses. South Africa’s transformation was wrought through high-minded activism. But today, due perhaps to misguided loyalty, the same organisation aligns itself with global pariahs. Specifically the Vladimir Putin Regime in Russia. In a different era, most South Africans would be cheering the efforts of the emerging Russian Hero Alexei Navalny. The 38 year old comes over as a Steve Biko of his nation, publicly challenging the abuses of an autocratic, corrupt system. Like Biko, he faced trumped up charges that ended in another suspended sentence but his brother jailed. Hopefully that is where the similarity ends. – AH
Russia’s top opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday called for mass protests to “destroy” President Vladimir Putin’s regime after a court handed him a suspended sentence but jailed his brother in a controversial fraud case.
In a lightning hearing that was abruptly brought forward by two weeks, a judge found both Navalny and his brother Oleg guilty of embezzlement and sentenced the siblings to three and a half years in what is widely seen as a politically motivated case.
But while Navalny’s sentence was suspended, his younger brother, who is not involved in politics, was ordered to serve the time behind bars in what observers saw as an attempt to muzzle the Kremlin’s critic ahead of 2018 presidential elections by taking his brother hostage.
“This regime does not just destroy its political opponents… now they target, torture and torment the relatives of its political opponents,” Navalny said angrily outside the courthouse, calling the verdict “the most mean and disgusting” possible.
“This regime has no right to exist, it must be destroyed,” he said. “I call on everyone to take to the streets today.”
Navalny’s supporters had already been planning to gather later on Tuesday near the Kremlin and by midday, 17,000 people have pledged on Facebook to attend the 1600 GMT rally.
The protest has not received required authorisation from city hall and police warned that all illegal activity would be punished.
The charismatic Navalny has become a major thorn in the Kremlin’s side over the last several years, first building a massive support base on the Internet as an anti-corruption blogger, then rallying tens of thousands during the 2011-12 anti-Putin protests and most recently coming in second in last year’s Moscow mayor’s race after a grassroots campaign against the Kremlin-backed candidate.
The Navalny brothers were accused of defrauding French cosmetics company Yves Rocher of nearly 27 million rubles (more than half a million dollars at the exchange rate at the time), although the firm has said that it suffered no damages.
Prosecutors had asked the court to jail Alexei for 10 years and Oleg for eight.
Tuesday’s hearing was a rushed affair — first the court abruptly moved it forward two weeks to just before the New Year — Russia’s biggest holiday — in a move seen as a tactic to avoid massive protests.
And the reading itself took only about 15 minutes — unusually for Russia where judges usually read sentences for hours, outlining the prosecution’s proof and witness testimonies.
“What are you jailing him for, what sort of disgrace is this? This is to punish me even more?” Navalny yelled, slamming his fists on the table, as the judge announced that his 31-year-old brother, a father of two young children, would be jailed.
Observers say that because of Navalny’s prominence the verdict could not have been issued without approval from Putin personally. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Kommersant FM radio on Tuesday that the president merely follows the case on the media.
Brother taken ‘hostage’
In a country dominated by Putin for years, observers say that Navalny is the one figure that can pose a threat to the strongman — a talented orator, he is young, handsome, with a photogenic wife and two kids, an unassuming middle-class lifestyle and is unstained by any ties to the 1990s political scene that many Russians despise.
The maverick politician — who has said he intends to run in the 2018 presidential elections — has seen a half a dozen criminal cases lodged against him and his allies recently, which he says are politically motivated, and has been under house arrest for nearly a year because of separate suspended sentence in a different lawsuit.
Navalny’s allies saw Tuesday’s sentence as an attempt to muzzle the charismatic figure as the ruble plunges and the economy teeters on the edge of recession amid Moscow’s standoff with the West over the Ukraine crisis.
“In essence, Oleg has been taken hostage, and Navalny will get discredited due to innocent people sent to jail because of him,” opposition politician Boris Nemtsov wrote on Facebook.
“They hope to control Alexei Navalny’s political activity… in the years before the 2018 (presidential) elections” while still keeping the possibility of jailing Navalny himself later, his ally Leonid Volkov wrote.
The decision is also aimed at “intimidating other critics of the government,” said Human Rights Watch in an emailed statement.
“The Kremlin seems to be telling independent voices to expect a harsher crackdown in 2015,” the rights organisation said.
Navalny’s sentencing hearing was originally due to take place on January 15 and was abruptly moved forward on Monday after some 15,000 people pledged to attend a rally on that day.
© 1994-2014 Agence France-Presse
By Maria ANTONOVA of Agence France-Presse
Russia’s charismatic protest leader Alexei Navalny, who got a suspended sentence but saw his brother sent to jail Tuesday, galvanised the opposition with attacks on President Vladimir Putin and exposed the exorbitant wealth of the elite.
A maverick politician who built a massive support base on the web before rallying tens of thousands against the ruling regime, the 38-year-old has become a top enemy for the Kremlin, with a half dozen criminal cases lodged against him and his allies.
The latest case ended on Tuesday with him and his brother Oleg found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to three and a half years in jail. But while Navalny’s sentence was suspended, his younger brother was ordered to serve the time behind bars — a verdict that Navalny denounced as a “disgrace” and observers considered an attempt to muzzle him by putting a close relative in Russia’s notorious penal system.
After emerging as the key figure in the mass opposition protests that rocked Russia in the winter of 2011-2012, Navalny took second place in Moscow mayoral polls and already dodged jail once when his first sentence of five years was suspended last year.
A brilliant orator whose sharp speeches frequently became slogans of Putin’s opposition, Navalny has spent several months under house arrest.
Tuesday’s hearing was abruptly brought forward by two weeks in what observers said was an apparent attempt to thwart brewing protest rallies.
“Navalny is a unique politician of the younger generation who managed to become famous and popular at a time when public politics has ceased to exist,” said Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
The latest case against him alleges that he and his brother Oleg embezzled about 27 million rubles (more than half a million dollars at the exchange rate at the time) from the Russian wing of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.
Other cases against him and his supporters — part of what he says is a concerted prosecution campaign employing dozens of investigators — range from his crowd-funded mayoral run, money paid to his firm by an opposition party and even the alleged faking of his licence to practice law.
Navalny has boldly stated an ambition to become president following the 2018 election and prosecute Putin and his allies, whom he accuses of rampant corruption and constant lying.
He coined the phrase “Party of crooks and thieves” from which majority party United Russia has never recovered. His slogan “Do not steal, do not lie” appeals to many as the foundation for a different Russia.
As the media focus turned to events in Ukraine this year and coverage on Navalny dwindled to a trickle due to arrest conditions, he accused Putin of waging war in eastern Ukraine to divert attention from corruption.
“Everything is based on lies,” he said in his final statement to the court earlier this month. “These lies have become the mechanism used by the state, they have become the essence of the state.”
Man with ‘many enemies
Navalny’s modest upbringing, middle-class lifestyle and lack of ties to the political scene of the 1990s, which many Russians have grown to despise, broaden his appeal.
The political image is reinforced by western-style photoshoots with his two children and wife Yulia, who has been by his side throughout court ordeals and took over his Twitter blog @navalny and its 860,000 followers after he was banned from using the Internet.
He has failed to rally all of Putin’s critics however, as some in the opposition accuse him of populism and xenophobia, pointing to his participation in nationalist marches in the past.
Most Russians who get their information from state television know him mostly as a convict in a previous timber fraud case.
In a poll conducted by Levada Centre pollster in September, 48 percent said they know who Navalny was but only 14 percent had a positive view of him.
Navalny began crusading against corruption in state companies in 2007, buying their shares to access company reports and grilling management at annual general meetings.
His Internet-driven projects – Rospil.info and later the Anti-corruption foundation (FBK) – have exposed suspicious state contracts and the luxurious mansions of public officials both in Russia and abroad, by poring over public reports, transactions and real estate databases.
“Because of his campaign against corruption, Navalny has many influential enemies,” said Petrov.
Politically, he is one of few self-sufficient public figures “whose popularity does not depend on Putin’s,” he added.
“If Putin disappeared from the political scene… only very few people would be left standing, including Navalny.”
© 1994-2014 Agence France-Presse
By Olga ROTENBERG of Agence France-Presse
Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny could be facing jail on Tuesday after a sudden twist in his controversial fraud trail, which has angered his supporters.
The date of the verdict, initially scheduled for January 15, was suddenly brought forward on Monday, raising concerns that the charismatic 38-year-old opposition leader could be sent to prison.
The move also raises the possibility of clashes in central Moscow as authorities are tightening the screws against dissenters.
This month prosecutors called for Navalny to be sentenced to 10 years in prison.
His lawyers said the decision to bring forward the ruling seemed unprecedented and aimed at wrong-footing thousands of Navalny’s supporters who had earlier pledged to rally near the Kremlin walls on January 15.
“There is just one question in this situation,” Navalny, who has been under house arrest since February, said wryly on Twitter.
“Why bothering with reading out the verdict at all? They should have taken (me) from home and put up the text of the verdict on the website of the Investigative Committee.”
The demonstration could stir simmering discontent over the collapse of the ruble and growing inflation as oil prices tumble and Western sanctions over Ukraine take their toll.
The move is capping a turbulent year that has seen the Kremlin lock horns with the West and ramp up pressure against the opposition at home amid brewing economic trouble.
More than 30,000 people had pledged to attend the January 15 rally.
Some had said the January rally threatened to become the biggest demonstration against President Vladimir Putin’s rule since the beginning of Moscow’s confrontation with the West over Ukraine.
Navalny’s supporters swiftly regrouped, calling for a new rally on Tuesday.
As of Monday evening, more than 8,500 have said on Facebook they will attend the new protest.
For better coordination, Navalny urged his supporters to install on their phones the FireChat app — widely used by protesters in Hong Kong this year — if authorities move to jam cell phone connections.
The announcement of the verdict can take more than a day.
Fears of jail sentence
Navalny, who shot to prominence during anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-12 which have since fizzled out under a crackdown, already faced a five-year term over embezzlement last year but to general astonishment walked away with a suspended sentence.
Along with his brother Oleg, Navalny is now accused of defrauding French cosmetics company Yves Rocher of nearly 27 million rubles (more than half a million dollars at the exchange rate at the time).
The French firm has said that it suffered no damages.
Navalny and his supporters have said the case was an attempt to muzzle him.
Many observers expressed concern that Navalny could be imprisoned rather than get a suspended sentence.
“I am afraid that Navalny will get a real prison term,” said Nikolai Petrov of the Higher School of Economics.
Navalny has said he believes Putin will personally decide his fate.
Navalny’s influence increased after he came second in the Moscow mayoral election last year, polling more than 27 percent of the vote.
Thousands of protesters rallied in central Moscow after the politician was sentenced to five years in a penal colony in 2013.
The sudden decision to bring forward the verdict drew parallels with a judge who raced to wrap up the second trial of Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky by the New Year in 2010.
Khodorkovsky was sentenced to a second term in prison over theft and money-laundering on December 30, 2010.
Last December, Putin suddenly pardoned Khodorkovsky after he spent a decade in prison.
© 1994-2014 Agence France-Presse
