Russia jails opposition protesters for violence against police

A Russian court on Tuesday jailed two men for up to three years after convicting them of using violence against police at a political protest, the longest prison terms handed down in what the opposition says is a co-ordinated crackdown on dissent.

The court action follows a summer of opposition demonstrations demanding free elections to Moscow’s city legislature on September 8th, the biggest sustained protest movement in the Russian capital since 2011-2013.

Protesters have demanded that a slew of opposition-minded candidates be allowed to take part in the election, something the authorities have refused, citing a lack of necessary signatures in their support. This has been contested by the opposition.

The authorities have allowed some opposition protests, but declined to sanction others. Police have briefly detained more than 2,000 people at rallies since mid-July, opened criminal cases into around a dozen people on charges including mass unrest and handed down short jail terms to scores of activists.

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On Tuesday, a Moscow court found Ivan Podkopayev (25) guilty of using pepper spray against police officers at a protest on July 27th and sentenced him to three years in jail. He had pleaded guilty.

Police officer’s arm

Another protester, Danil Beglets, a businessman, received a two-year sentence for pulling a police officer’s arm while being detained at the same rally, charges he also pleaded guilty to.

The court also heard criminal cases against two other protesters on Tuesday.

A Moscow court also sentenced blogger Vladislav Sinitsa to five years in jail after finding him guilty of extremism and inciting violence against the children of police in a July 31st post on Twitter.

Sinitsa suggested in the post that police officers who used violence against protesters might find their own children violently kidnapped. At least one police officer told the court he interpreted the tweet as a threat against his own family.

Sinitsa denied the tweet amounted to incitement to violence and said he would appeal against the sentence, which opposition politician Alexei Navalny decried on Twitter.

“ . . . There’s no article in the criminal code about stupidity. But there is for deliberately prosecuting someone who is innocent,” said Mr Navalny.

Drop charges

The opposition, however, cautiously welcomed a move by the Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, to drop charges against five people who were taken into custody and charged with mass unrest.

Investigators dropped one of two charges against 21-year-old student Yegor Zhukov, a blogger with more than 100,000 YouTube followers whose arrest had caused outcry among classmates, and a Moscow court ruled to move him from jail to house arrest.

A charge of inciting extremism online remains in place, however, investigators said. It carries a jail term of up to five years. – Reuters