Police officers detain anti-corruption campaigner and opposition figure Alexei Navalny during a rally in Moscow, Russia, March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on Sunday at a rally which Navalny had called to protest against corruption.

A Reuters reporter saw police detain Navalny on Moscow’s Tverskaya Street and put him in a police truck. Hundreds of opposition protesters crowded around the police van and tried to prevent it from taking Navalny away.</s>MOSCOW/YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Police detained hundreds of protesters across Russia on Sunday, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against corruption and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The protests, reckoned to be the biggest since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2011/2012, come a year before a presidential election that Vladimir Putin is expected to contest, running for what would be a fourth term.

Opinion polls suggest the liberal opposition, which Navalny represents, has little chance of fielding a candidate capable of unseating Putin, who enjoys high ratings. But Navalny and his supporters hope to channel public discontent over official corruption to attract more support.

A Reuters reporter saw police detain Navalny, who hopes to run against Putin, as he walked along central Moscow’s Tverskaya Street with supporters, part of an unsanctioned rally as a police helicopter circled overhead.

Police put Navalny in a truck around which hundreds of protesters crowded, trying to open its doors.

“I’m happy that so many people came out (onto the streets) from the east (of the country) to Moscow,” Navalny said, moments before he was detained.

The Kremlin said on Friday that plans for the central Moscow protest, which the city’s authorities had rejected, were an illegal provocation.

The United States condemned the arrests, saying the action was an affront to democratic values.

“We call on the government of Russia to immediately release all peaceful protesters,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement, adding that Washington was “troubled” to hear of the arrest of Navalny.

Law enforcement officers gather as they block opposition supporters in Moscow, Russia, March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

SEVERAL HUNDRED DETAINED

Grigory Okhotin, one of the founders of OVD Info, a human rights organization that monitors detentions, said around 600 people had been detained in Moscow on Sunday.

Police said around 7,000 to 8,000 people were on Tverskaya Street and surrounding areas by mid-afternoon and put the number of detentions by late afternoon at around 500.

As evening drew in, hundreds of riot police lined up on Manezh Square at the end of Tverskaya Street and drove protesters away from the Kremlin’s walls. Some opposition supporters on Manezh Square shouted: “Putin is a thief” as tourists wandered nearby.

Navalny called the protests after publishing allegations that Medvedev, the prime minister and former president, had amassed a huge fortune that far outstripped his official salary.

Medvedev’s spokeswoman called the allegations “propagandistic attacks” unworthy of detailed comment and said they amounted to pre-election posturing by Navalny.

Elsewhere, at a rally in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, a Reuters reporter saw 30 people being detained after unfurling banners reading: “The prime minister should answer”.

“I’ve come out (to protest) against corruption and want the authorities to answer the accusations in the Navalny film,” 17-year-old student Denis Korneev said at the Moscow protest.

“In many countries the government would have resigned over this.”

Slideshow (30 Images)

Witnesses told Reuters that four people were also detained at a rally in Yekaterinburg in the industrial Urals region.

On Yekaterinburg’s Labour Square, protesters waved posters reading: “We are the authorities here” while nationalists and supporters of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party looked on.

Local media reported that large protests also took place in other cities, including St Petersburg and Novosibirsk. State media broadly ignored Sunday’s protests.</s>Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner, has been arrested in Moscow as unsanctioned protests against the government were held across the country.

Navalny and his Foundation for Fighting Corruption had called for the protests, which attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands in most sizeable Russian cities, from the Far East port of Vladivostok to the European heartland.

The protests appeared to be one of the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction in Russia since the massive 2011-12 demonstrations that followed a fraud-tainted parliamentary election.

The protests on Sunday focused on reports by Navalny’s group claiming that the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, had amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. The alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, so many placards in Sunday’s protests showed mocking images of yellow duck toys.

In Vladivostok, police forcefully detained some demonstrators near the city’s railway terminal, in one case falling down a small grassy slope as they wrestled with a detainee.

News reports and social media reported demonstrations in large cities throughout the country including Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. At least 25 people were reported arrested in Vladivostok and 12 in Khabarovsk.

Some demonstrators showed up with their faces painted green, a reference to a recent attack on Navalny when an assailant threw a green antiseptic liquid on to his face.</s>MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Russian police on Sunday detained 17 people who work at an anti-corruption foundation headed by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a director of the fund and Navalny's press secretary told Reuters.

Earlier on Sunday police detained Navalny, who wants to run against President Vladimir Putin in next year's presidential election, at an unsanctioned anti-corruption protest in Moscow that Navalny organised. Similar rallies were held across Russia.

"Seventeen members of the foundation were detained by police at the foundation's office where we were doing an online broadcast of today's protest. We are charged with disobeying the police," Roman Rubanov, director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, told Reuters by phone from a Moscow police station.

A law enforcement source confirmed to Reuters that 17 people from Navalny's foundation had been detained, without elaborating.

Earlier this year Navalny's foundation published allegations that Russian Prime Minister and former president Dmitry Medvedev had amassed a huge fortune that far outstripped his official salary.

Medvedev's spokeswoman called the allegations "propagandistic attacks" unworthy of detailed comment and said they amounted to pre-election posturing by Navalny.</s>Kremlin critic, detained in anti-corruption protests, has become Russia's most visible face of opposition.

"Don't try to fight for me," Alexei Navalny wrote on Twitter after police in Moscow arrested him during a protest , urging people to stay with the rally he had called. "Our issue today is the fight against corruption."

Navalny, 40, a staunch Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner, has long been the most visible opposition figure to the rule of President Vladimir Putin .

Navalny lives in Moscow with his wife and two children. He rose to prominence in Russian politics in 2008 when he started blogging about alleged corruption at some of Russia's big state-controlled corporations.

He used social media to reach out to predominantly young followers, mocking the establishment loyal to Putin. He became a minority shareholder in major oil companies, banks and ministries, and posed awkward questions about holes in state finances.

Before the 2011 parliamentary election, Navalny urged his blog readers to vote for any party except Putin's United Russia, which he dubbed the "party of crooks and thieves".

United Russia won the election amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging, albeit with a much-reduced majority.

He came second in 2013's Moscow mayoral race after a grassroots campaign against the Kremlin-backed candidate. Navalny launched hundreds of lawsuits contesting the victory of his rival, Sergei Sobyanin.

Navalny served a 15-day prison sentence in 2015 for distributing leaflets for an opposition rally on the subway.

In February, a Russian court found Navalny guilty in a retrial of a 2013 fraud case, which barred him from running for president next year.

Judge Alexei Vtyurin handed down a five-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of about $8,500 to Navalny for embezzling timber worth about $500,000.

Navalny pledged to appeal against the "politically motivated" ruling and continue with his plans of challenging President Vladimir Putin in the forthcoming presidential elections, even though the Russian law bars anyone convicted of a crime from running for a public office for 10 years.

Navalny has faced criticism from the anti-Putin camp, reports the BBC. Some liberals have criticised what they see as Navalny's flirtation with Russian nationalism. He has spoken at ultra-nationalist events.

Russian nationalists, too, were wary of his links with the United States after he spent a semester at Yale University in 2010.

However, when the opposition elected its own leaders in a 2012 election, Navalny won the vote, beating veteran Putin critic and former chess champion Garry Kasparov.

The demonstrations on Sunday were organised by Navalny, who urged people to take to the streets to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The protests, which attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands in most sizeable Russian cities, were the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction in Russia since mass protests in 2011-2012. Dozens were arrested.

Navalny called for the protests after publishing a detailed report this month accusing Medvedev of controlling a property empire through a shadowy network of non-profit organisations.

Medvedev, who has so far made no comments on the claims, is accused of amassing a private collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. The alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, so many placards in the protests showed mocking images of yellow toy duck.</s>Large anti-corruption protests swept across Russia Sunday. Many of them were organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny who has now been arrested. These protests were the biggest since 2012 when tens of thousands came out against the Kremlin over allegations of widespread vote fraud. NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to independent Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner who is in Moscow.</s>Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has tapped into discontent among the young urban middle class with fiery speeches and Western-style campaigning

Anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has cemented his status as leader of Russia’s opposition movement by organising the largest unauthorised protest in recent years against President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

The clean-cut lawyer, 40, who was arrested at Sunday’s demonstration in Moscow, is no stranger to clashes with the Kremlin.

He has spent time under house arrest and seen his brother jailed in a string of cases he has denounced as retribution for his challenging authorities and exposing the vast wealth of the president’s inner circle.

Late last year, in his most ambitious move yet, he announced he would run for president in 2018, an election that Putin is expected to dominate.

This month he posted a YouTube video tracing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s links to mansions, yachts and vineyards that has been viewed 12 million times.

No official response followed, and Navalny called supporters to protest across Russia. Thousands turned out in Moscow, where some 1,000 people were arrested including Navalny.

He now faces up to 15 days in police cells, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors the detention of activists

In February Navalny was found guilty in a retrial of an embezzlement case that could mean he is not eligible to stand for president — though he insists he will not be forced out of the race.

Though criticised by some liberals for his anti-immigrant nationalist stance, Navalny has tapped into discontent among the young urban middle class with fiery speeches and Western-style campaigning.

“I will discuss what everyone has been silent about but has needed to be said for a long time,” Navalny said in December when announcing his bid for the presidency.

But in an environment where the media and the political landscape are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, he remains a fringe figure for most Russians, who are more likely to believe the official portrayal of him as a Western stooge and convicted criminal.

“Navalny is a unique politician of the younger generation,” said Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, adding that he had managed to develop a high profile “at a time when public politics has ceased to exist.”

During the mass protests of 2011, sparked by allegations of vote rigging in parliamentary polls, Navalny grabbed attention with his uncompromising rhetoric.

In front of crowds of tens of thousands, he coined catchy phrases such as the “party of crooks and thieves” to slam the governing United Russia.

Although the protests petered out after a crackdown by the authorities and Putin sailed to a third term in March 2012, they helped launch Navalny’s political career.

In 2013 he ran a crowd-funded campaign to be mayor of Moscow and ended up finishing second behind the Kremlin candidate, with over 27 percent of the vote.

But Navalny was also facing a series of legal cases against him, a campaign that supporters saw as a sign the Kremlin was running scared.

In July 2013 he was found guilty in an embezzlement case involving an allegedly crooked timber deal and given a five-year suspended sentence.

Navalny was then forced to spend months under house arrest and often kept incommunicado over another graft case linked to the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.

He was also given a suspended sentence in that case, but his brother Oleg, a co-defendant was jailed for three and a half years.

Despite his travails, Navalny has kept trying to expose the lavish wealth of the elites of the Putin era, broadcasting the findings of his investigations to his 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Trawling through land registries and the filings of offshore companies, Navalny and his team have helped lay bare the hidden fortunes of high-ranking officials.

Among his most eye-catching exposes have been details on the palatial homes of Putin’s allies in Russia and abroad — including one kitted out with a vast storage room for fur coats built by Vladimir Yakunin, former chief of Russia’s national railways.

In July 2016, as Western sanctions over Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis and low oil prices hit average Russians hard, Navalny revealed that deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov was sending his pet corgis on private jets to dog shows around Europe.

“Dear friends, those who voted for Putin and United Russia, you made it possible for Russian officials to steal completely openly and live as they do,” Navalny said in an online video.

“Please don’t ever do this again.”</s>On March 26, 2017, thousands of Russians rallied across the country to protest government corruption, in one of the largest opposition demonstrations in years. Demonstrators defied bans by authorities and were arrested by the hundreds. Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of Russia’s President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev, called for the protests after posting reports accusing Medvedev of controlling properties far beyond what he could afford on his government salary, including mansions, yachts, and vineyards. Navalny was also arrested, and has now been fined and jailed for 15 days for organizing the rallies. See also “What Russia's Latest Protests Mean for Putin” from the Atlantic’s Julia Ioffe.</s>EU calls for release of prominent Kremlin critic Navalny, a day after he was detained at opposition protest in Moscow.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared in court on Monday, a day after being detained at a major opposition protest that he had organised.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Russia on Sunday in the biggest show of defiance since the 2011-2012 anti-government protests.

The Kremlin has dismissed the opposition as a Westernised urban elite disconnected from the issues faced by the poor in Russia's far-flung regions, but Sunday's protests included demonstrations in the areas which typically produce a high vote for President Vladimir Putin, from Siberia's Chita to Dagestan's Makhachkala.

Russian police say that about 500 people were arrested, while human rights groups say 1,000 were taken into custody. On Monday, the European Union called on Russian authorities to release the demonstrators.

The protests were led by Navalny, a charismatic opposition leader who has recently announced his bid for presidency.

Navalny was grabbed by police while walking to the rally from a nearby subway station. He posted a selfie on Twitter from the courtroom on Monday morning, saying: "A time will come when we'll put them on trial too - and that time it will be fair." If found guilty, he could be jailed for 15 days for staging an unauthorised rally.

The 40-year-old Navalny, arguably Russia's most popular opposition leader, has been twice convicted on fraud and embezzlement charges that he has dismissed as politically motivated. Navalny is currently serving a suspended sentence, and Sunday's arrest could be used as a pretext to convert it into jail time.

Separately, police arrested 17 associates of Navalny's who were at their office setting up and monitoring a webcast of the rally. All of them spent the night at the police station and the authorities reportedly confiscated all their equipment. It was not immediately clear what charges they may be facing.

Whether Navalny and his associates will be slapped with new charges could indicate which approach the Kremlin will take in dealing with a new wave of discontent: crack down on it even further or exercise restraint.

Russian state television completely ignored the protests in their broadcasts on Sunday.

The demonstrations on Sunday were organised by Navalny, who urged people to take to the streets to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Navalny called for the protests after publishing a detailed report this month accusing Medvedev of controlling a property empire through a shadowy network of non-profit organisations.

Medvedev, who has so far made no comments on the claims, is accused of amassing a private collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. The alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, thus many placards in the protests showed mocking images of a yellow toy duck.

Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from Russia, said that the breadth and scale of Sunday's protests had likely surprised both Navalny and the Kremlin; solidifying Navalny's position as the pre-eminent opposition voice.

"Navalny's message of anti-corruption has really struck a chord with Russians," said Challands. "And going after Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, is pretty canny because - although Putin at the top of the tree is fairly unassailable - Dmitry Medvedev is a different political animal. He is much more vulnerable, much less popular, and putting pressure on him puts pressure on Vladimir Putin."

Though criticised by some liberals for his anti-immigrant nationalist stance, Navalny has tapped into discontent among the young urban middle class with fiery speeches and Western-style campaigning.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that Navalny's focus on corruption particularly resonated with young people – a demographic that is struggling under Russia's economic stagnation and high unemployment – and brought them into the streets in large numbers.

"Now the authorities have to think what to do about that: most likely there will be a combination of kind of placating from one side and going and putting a lot of people behind bars," said Felgenhauer.

Felgenhauer said that the authorities would be able to easily commute Navalny's suspended sentence into an actual prison sentence.

"Most likely Navalny understands that, and actually being prosecuted in Russia gives you 'points'," said Felgenhauer. "He is playing the long game."

But in an environment where the media and the political landscape are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Navalny remains a fringe figure for most Russians, who are more likely to believe the official portrayal of him as a Western stooge and convicted criminal. 

 

 "Navalny is a unique politician of the younger generation," Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told AFP agency, adding that he had managed to develop a high profile "at a time when public politics has ceased to exist".</s>MOSCOW — Russian police detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on Sunday at a rally Navalny had called to protest corruption.

A Reuters reporter saw police detain Navalny on Moscow's Tverskaya Street and put him in a police truck. Hundreds of opposition protesters crowded around the police van and tried to prevent it from taking him away.

A tweet from Navalny's account after the incident said: "Guys, I'm all right. Don't try to break me out. Go on walking down the Tverskaya. Our topic today is fight against corruption."

Russian protesters denouncing government corruption had gathered across Russia, and some scuffled with police.

The protests Sunday appear to be one of the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction since the 2011-12 demonstrations following a fraud-tainted parliamentary election.

The demonstrations, driven by Navalny, focus on his recent claims that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards.

Moscow police told the TASS news agency that the number of people detained was "more than 500." Police said those detained will face "administrative prosecution," or fines and arrests.

But the final tally of those detained in Moscow was 700, according to the human rights monitoring group OVD-Info.

Navalny's press secretary, Kira Yarmush, said on Twitter that people at his office had been detained and that Leonid Volkov, the head of the office and co-founder of Navalny's unregistered Party of Progress, was facing extremism charges.

Some demonstrators have showed up with their faces painted green, a reference to a recent attack on Navalny when an assailant threw a green antiseptic liquid onto his face.

It isn't the first time Navalny has been in trouble with the police. Just last month, he was convicted of embezzling 16 million rubles ($270,000) in 2009.

At the time, Navalny said the conviction was an effort to stop him from challenging President Vladimir Putin's party in coming elections. People with criminal convictions are ineligible to run for office in Russia.
Authorities detain hundreds of people, including Alexei Navalny, at anti-corruption protests across Russia.