(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) About 250 people were detained at a Moscow protest called by Navalny on Tuesday after a judge sentenced him and his younger brother Oleg to three and a half years in prison.
A Russian court on Wednesday ordered two people to spend two weeks in jail after a protest in support of top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who was convicted of fraud in a controversial trial.
About 250 people were detained at a Moscow protest called by Navalny on Tuesday after a judge sentenced him and his younger brother Oleg to three and a half years in prison.
His sentence was suspended while Oleg Navalny was ordered to serve his term in a penal colony infuriating the prominent opposition leader.
Most of those detained were released after several hours but about 70 spent the night in police cells and have to face the courts in January on charges of resisting police demands and participating in an unauthorised rally rights organisation OVD-Info said.
RIA-Novosti news agency reported from one court that two activists were sentenced to 15 days of detention.
Navalny 38 himself defied his house arrest to join Tuesday’s protest.
Policemen grabbed him off the street and put him into a van before he could reach the protest near the Kremlin but took him home rather than to the police station.
He wrote on Twitter that five policemen remain on the stairwell outside his apartment and that the drive to his apartment building has been blocked.
The Navalny brothers were convicted of defrauding French cosmetics company Yves Rocher and embezzling 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.
News of the verdict was absent from programmes on the main television channels where most Russians get their information.
Police said about 1500 people turned up for the Moscow rally on Tuesday although Navalny’s supporters gave higher figures.
Several people braved freezing temperatures for hours after the protest was broken up by huddling in a giant Christmas ornament sculpture on the square — including Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina — and were briefly detained on Wednesday.
The United States and the European Union issued concerned messages over the verdict but Russia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that they should mind their own business.
“Before they issue complaints to Russia our Western partners should better work out what is happening in their own homes” it said in a statement.
“(They) should stop attempting to put pressure on Russian justice system and politicise a purely criminal case.”
Although observers had predicted that Navalny’s violation of his house arrest would lead to a tough punishment and possibly jail a court on Wednesday said it will not be reviewing the complaint filed by the prison service over the infraction.
Navalny’s defence has appealed the verdict and also asked the court to repeal the house arrest — which was imposed during the fraud trial and recently extended to February — arguing that his suspended sentence means he should be free to move around.
Reports said the government moved to curb the popularity of FireChat an application that allows people to communicate without the Internet and that was widely advertised by the opposition Tuesday by adding one of its technical domains to the register of addresses with calls for mass riots that must be blocked.
The blockage however did not affect its availability: FireChat — which has a Russian cofounder and CTO — said on Twitter that the application was seventh most popular download in the Russian Apple Store overtaking even Twitter.
Several blogs carrying information about the rally or text of Navalny’s appeals were also added to the register and several media websites were given official warning by the media watchdog for “publishing materials containing appeals for changing the constitutional regime” after writing about the protest.
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