MOSCOW: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was released from jail Sunday after three weeks behind bars for organizing anti-Kremlin protests, his second spell in detention in as many months.
The 42-year-old activist left a detention center in the south of Moscow in the early hours of the morning and went to a waiting car, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
Authorities have turned up the heat on Vladimir Putin’s top foe since the Russian president’s approval ratings took a beating over deeply unpopular pension reforms.
The Kremlin critic finished a 30-day sentence in September for organizing a rally at the start of the year, but was arrested as soon as he was released to face further charges over another protest.
The latter demonstration, against the raising of the retirement age, was time to coincide with regional elections last month.
The Kremlin suffered rare defeats in those polls, with voters rejecting candidates from the ruling United Russia party in at least two regions.
A run-off in the far eastern Primorsky Krai will be held again in two months after accusations of vote-rigging in favor of the Moscow-backed candidate led to protests.
Navalny ally Leonid Volkov said at the time of the latest arrest that the Kremlin had “to take it out on someone because of all their defeats and failures of the last weeks.”
Supporters fear that the two consecutive administrative cases mean the authorities may be getting ready to open a criminal probe against Navalny.
In that case he could face a lengthy prison term.
Amnesty International described Navalny as a prisoner of conscience and said he had committed no crime.
Navalny came to prominence as an organizer of huge anti-Putin rallies that shook Russia in 2011 and 2012 following accusations of vote-rigging in parliamentary polls.
His anti-corruption rhetoric is especially popular with younger people who follow his online channels and blogs.
Since his most recent jail term his 17-year-old daughter, Daria, has launched her own Youtube show called “Voice of My Generation.”
Navalny was barred from running against Putin in a presidential election in March.
He served a month in prison in the summer after organizing demonstrations ahead of Putin’s swearing-in ceremony for a fourth Kremlin term.
The Yale-educated lawyer has faced a string of charges and attacks since he became the leading opposition figure in Russia.
Putin foe Navalny freed from jail after back-to-back sentences
Putin foe Navalny freed from jail after back-to-back sentences
- Navalny was barred from running against Putin in a presidential election in March
- Navalny came to prominence as an organizer of huge anti-Putin rallies that shook Russia in 2011 and 2012
Germany’s Merz vows to keep out far-right as he warns of a changed world
- “We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” Merz told party delegates
- He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats
STUTTGART, Germany: Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed on Friday not to let the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “ruin” Germany and told his fellow conservatives to prepare for a raw new climate of great-power competition.
Merz’s message to the Christian Democrat (CDU) party’s conference in Stuttgart reiterated points he made at last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, saying the “rules based order we knew no longer exists.” He also made calls for economic reform, and a rejection of antisemitism and the AfD, which is aiming to win its first state election this year.
“We will not allow these people from the so-called Alternative for Germany to ruin our country,” he told party delegates, who welcomed former chancellor Angela Merkel with a storm of applause on her first visit to the conference since stepping down in 2021.
Merz, trailing badly in the polls ahead of a string of state elections this year, said he accepted criticism that the reforms he announced during last year’s election campaign had been slower than initially communicated.
“I will freely admit that perhaps, after the change of government, we did not make it clear quickly enough that we would not be able to achieve this enormous reform effort overnight,” he said.
He avoided critising his coalition partners in the center-left Social Democrats and promised to push ahead with efforts to cut bureaucracy, bring down energy costs and foster investment, saying that economic prosperity was vital to Germany’s security.
He also pledged further reforms of the welfare state and said new proposals for a reform of the pension system would be presented, following a revolt by younger members of his own party in a bruising parliamentary battle last year.
Merz’s speech was greeted with around 10 minutes of applause as delegates put on a show of unity and he was re-elected as party chairman with 91 percent of the vote, avoiding any potentially embarrassing display of internal dissatisfaction.
Among other business, the party conference is due to discuss a motion to block access to social media platforms for children under the age of 16. However any legislation would take time because under the German system, state governments have the main responsibility for regulating media.
The elections begin next month with the western states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate before a further round later in the year, one of them in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD hopes to win its first state ballot.
