More than a thousand people gathered on Moscow's Manezh Square on Tuesday in a show of support for convicted opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg, but the turnout fell short of the 18,000 people who had signed up on social media and riot police quickly suppressed those who did brave the bitter cold.
At least 132 people had been detained two hours into the protest, according to OVD-Info, an independent website that monitors detentions at opposition rallies. Among those detained was Navalny himself, who violated his house arrest to attend the unsanctioned rally. Earlier in the day, a Moscow court had issued its verdict in the embezzlement case against the brothers after bumping up the initial hearing date from Jan. 15 to Dec. 30. The court sentenced Navalny and his brother to three and a half years each, though the anti-corruption fighter got off with a suspended sentence while Oleg was taken into custody and hit with prison time. After the decision, Navalny denounced the Russian authorities for, in his view, targeting his brother to punish him.
see article in: Navalny
INC News, 30/12/2014
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