RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES have raided the homes of leading opposition activists, stoking tensions ahead of a protest rally today against Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Special investigators searched the flat of Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption lawyer who has become the leading light of the anti-Putin movement, as well as the home of left-wing activist Sergei Udaltsov and socialite-turned-campaigner Kseniya Sobchak.
The spokesman of the federal investigative committee, Vladimir Markin, said more than 10 searches were under way in connection with a criminal investigation into “mass disturbances and the use of violence against the authorities” at an opposition rally on May 6th, where an estimated 20,000 took to the streets to protest against the return of Mr Putin to the presidency.
Several of the protest leaders are to appear before the committee today shortly before another mass rally against Mr Putin begins.
Dubbed “the march of the millions”, this will be the first big protest since a law introducing hefty fines for public disorder came into force last week.
Mr Putin signed the law allowing for a sharp increase in penalties for public order offences last Friday – ignoring his council on human rights, which said the measures contradicted the right of Russian citizens to freedom of assembly.
From now on people taking part in marches where unrest occurs risk maximum penalties of 300,000 roubles (€7,380) – more than the average annual salary – while organisations could be landed with a bill of one million roubles (€24,610).
During yesterday’s raids, investigators seized Mr Navalny’s computers, mobile phones and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “United Russia – crooks and thieves” – a phrase the lawyer popularised about the ruling party.
“It’s no joke. In the course of searching the bedroom they discovered the T-shirt and took it away,” Mr Navalny posted on Twitter.
The blogosphere erupted as the searches became known, with “hello 1937” becoming a popular tag on Russian Twitter – a reference to the mass killings of Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror.
“We think [the searches] could provide an irreversible growth of tensions in society and close the way to a constructive evolution of the political system in Russia,” three parliamentarians from the left-wing Just Russia party wrote on a blog.
This view was echoed by former Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin.
“The searches of the opposition leaders on the eve of June 12th alongside the new [protest] law will radicalise the protest and demonstrates the strengthening of the radicals in government,” he wrote on Twitter.