Russian police have invaded the residences of Alexei Navalny’s two close allies. One could be facing 12 years imprisonment, according to a well-known activist.
Kseniya Fdeyeva was arrested and Zakhar Sarapulov was detained by authorities. They were both former heads of Navalny’s regional network.
The move came on a day that saw Russia’s Supreme Court ordering the closure of the country’s largest rights group Memorial International.
Russia in June branded Navalny’s political organisations ‘extremist’, prompting his team to shut down the regional network that supported his political campaigns and corruption investigations.
Almost all of his top allies have since fled the country.
Russian police have raided the homes of two allies of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, with one facing up to 12 years in jail. Pictured: Navalny appears in the Petushinsky court via video link at a hearing on his lawsuit against his prison colony classifying him as posing a potential extremist or terrorist threat
Then, after his allies regrouped around a new network of organisations set up for Russia’s parliamentary election in September, authorities started investigating campaign staffers on the same extremism charges.
Leonid Volkov, the ex-head of the regional network, said on Tuesday that investigators had raided the homes of the former office coordinators in the Siberian regions of Irkutsk and Tomsk – Zakhar Sarapulov and Ksenia Fadeyeva, who is also a local lawmaker.
Volkov, who now resides in EU member Lithuania, said on Telegram that the pair were later brought in for questioning.
He added that Navalny’s allies had also lost contact with a third ex-coordinator in the Siberian region of Altai.
Volkov said he had tried to persuade both Fadeyeva and Sarapulov, to leave Russia, as he and a number of other dissidents have done, but they refused.
‘Ksenia Fadeyeva and Zakhar Sarapulov are the best people of Russia – true patriots and worthy citizens,’ Volkov wrote.
Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov, who also left Russia earlier this year, tweeted that Fadeyeva, 29, had been charged with creating or participating in an extremist organisation while using an official position.
The charge carries a penalty of between seven and 12 years in prison.
This move was made on the same day as Memorial International, Russia’s biggest rights organization, was closed by the Supreme Court of Russia. Pictured: Russia’s Supreme Court judge Alla Nazarova (left) reads the conclusion of their judgement on Tuesday
Navalny can be seen via videolink from prison at a Petushk court session on Tuesday
It was not possible to reach the Investigative Committee immediately, which is the state agency charged with investigating criminal acts and pressing charges.
After being poisoned with Novichok, a military nerve agent that Western experts suspected was used to infect Siberia’s Navalny, Navalny was taken by air ambulance to Germany for treatment.
Russia denied involvement in the poisoning, and the experts rejected their findings. The West responded by imposing new sanctions on Russia.
Navalny, who was visiting Siberia during the poisoning to support opposition candidates for local office, was in Siberia. Fadeyeva was 29 years old and won election in the following month.
Authorities arrested Lilia Chanysheva, the head of Navalny’s disbanded central Bashkortostan office.
For creating an extremist group, the charges against her could land her between 6 and 10 years behind bars.
Critics believe that Navalny’s decision to go back to Russia in January after treatment in Germany has triggered unprecedented crackdowns on opposition media and rights groups. Navalny was convicted in February of old charges for embezzlement.
Navalny’s close aides were raided and taken into custody Tuesday. This was the day that Memorial, a human rights organization in the country, was closed.
It is the latest step in a months-long crackdown on rights activists, independent media and opposition supporters.
Police officers stand outside Russia’s Supreme Court in Moscow on Tuesday after Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial International, the organisation’s central structure, over breaches of its designation as a ‘foreign agent’
The Prosecutor’s General’s Office filed a petition to the Supreme Court last month to cancel the legal status Memorial. Memorial, an international group of human rights that became famous for studying political repression within the Soviet Union, currently covers more than 50 groups across Russia.
The prosecution argued Tuesday that Memorial “creates an false image of Soviet Union as terrorist state,” and “whitewashes, and then rehabilitates Nazi crimes.”
Independent Mediazona’s news outlet tweeted the video. It showed large numbers of people chanting, “Disgrace!” In response to the ruling, a large crowd chanted ‘Disgrace!’
In 2016, Memorial was designated a “foreign agent” – this label implies extra government scrutiny and can have strong negative connotations, which could discredit the target organization. Prosecutors claimed that Memorial repeatedly broke regulations that required it to be designated as a foreign agency and attempted to hide this designation in their suit to close it down.
On Tuesday, supporters of International Memorial, a human rights organization, and journalists gathered outside the Supreme Court Building.
On Tuesday, police officers arrested a supporter of Memorial International outside Russia’s Supreme Court.
Memorial and its supporters maintain that the allegations are political motivated. The leaders of the group have pledged to keep their work going even if it is closed by the court.
Maria Eismont (one of the attorneys who represented the group at court) said that “Of course nothing is done with this.” “We will appeal. Memorial will live on among the people. It’s those who serve this cause that are most important. We will keep working.
The public has expressed outrage at the pressure placed on this group. Many prominent people have spoken out in support of it. A number of people were detained Tuesday in connection with a protest at the courthouse.
Memorial’s Memorial Human Rights Center branch is also up for closing. A court hearing at the Moscow City Court was scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Russian authorities increased their pressure on journalists and media outlets in Russia, as well as rights groups. Some were classified as ‘undesirable,’ which is a Russian label for organizations that are illegal in Russia. Others were charged with links to such groups. To prevent any further charges against them, many were ordered to be shut down.
After a judge ruled that the site contained material that ‘justify the actions of terrorist and extremist groups’, authorities shut down OVD-Info’s website on Saturday. They rejected the accusations as being politically motivated.
OVD Info strongly condemned Memorial’s closing.
The group stated that Memoria is an institution for national memories about Soviet repressions and the Great Terror.
According to it, “To close down this institution would be to publicly justify Stalin’s oppressions.” It stated that it was a signal to both the society as to the elites. “Yes, we still need repressions in the present. They were useful and necessary for the Soviet state in its past.