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Alexei Navalny in the police station
Photo: - / dpa
The judge had just read the verdict when Alexej Navalny from the police station in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow, spoke by video: "Don't be afraid, go demonstrate," he urged his followers.
“Not for me, but for your future.” His spokeswoman had posted the short clip on social media.
Navalny had actually thought that he would meet his lawyers in Khimki, to whom he had been denied access for hours after his arrest at Moscow airport.
But the security authorities had decided to try him right at the station - and to take him into custody for 30 days after only about four hours "for repeated violations of the probation conditions".
Only journalists from the state broadcaster Life News and Rossiya 1 were allowed to take part in the trial. Everyone else had to stay outside at minus 18 degrees.
Despite the cold, around 200 Navalny supporters came and chanted for hours, "Set him free!" And "Freedom for Navalny!"
"Do not be afraid"
Alexei Navalny
Kremlin critics have always been monitored and persecuted by the security authorities in Russia, including Navalny for many years.
It is more than unusual that he has now been given a quick trial at the police station.
Just like the maneuver with which the authorities rerouted Navalny's plane from Berlin to another Moscow airport the previous evening - obviously out of fear that his supporters might give the opposition party a formal reception.
Political expert Tatiana Stanowaja believes that all of this shows that the siloviki, the security services, are in charge of the Navalny issue.
Those who are responsible for domestic affairs in the Kremlin, on the other hand, don't have much to report.
Her colleague Alexander Baunow also writes that it is about "preserving face of the state and maintaining the deterrent machine."
from Moscow's Carnegie Center.
Because if Navalny could have easily entered, no one would take threats from the state seriously.
In other words, the Russian state cannot afford to be weak.
The Kremlin is prepared to pay a price for this policy: the already difficult relations with the West have worsened as a result of the Navalny case.
Not only the federal government demanded Nawalny's "immediate release", numerous other states, including the USA and France, also sharply criticized him.
Putin and representatives of his regime have always let such criticism bounce off them.
But Navalny has become enormously important as a result of the events of the past few days and weeks.
The Kremlin critic consciously risked losing his freedom.
A daring undertaking that fits his biography.
Navalny always drew his strength from "challenging those who were stronger," writes Carnegie expert Baunow.
Even critics from the ranks of the opposition now praise Nawalyn's courage.
His popularity has undoubtedly increased after he was poisoned.
Navalny will now be locked away until February 15th - it could turn out to be years.
It is also the first time that he has been in a detention center for longer.
The conditions there are tougher than the arrest sentences that he previously had to serve, among other things, contacts with the outside world are much more limited.
On February 2, a court is due to hear whether a controversial suspended sentence from 2014 will be converted into prison.
Then the opposition would have to be held in camp for three and a half years.
Navalny as a martyr
So far the Kremlin had avoided locking Navalny in custody for long; they did not want to make a martyr out of him.
Now the signs have changed: Navalny is now an enemy who must be humiliated, smashed, punished, says policy expert Stanovaya.
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Navalny is taken to the prison van by officers
Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP
In the state media and by the Kremlin, since his poisoning, he has either been portrayed as "nobody" or defamed as an agent controlled by Western services - for many people who obtain information primarily through state television and other state media, the image of Nawalny will therefore hardly appear to change.
The 44-year-old only has one thing left in this situation: he has to mobilize his supporters.
Navalny has now done that with the video call after his conviction: On Saturday, January 23, his offices want to organize demonstrations across the country.
It is another declaration of war on the regime, Navalny will not give up, even if he is in custody.
How many people will join him is questionable.
The parliament had recently tightened numerous laws: Not only was freedom of expression further restricted, it also made demonstrations almost impossible.
The price of expressing one's opinion publicly on the streets of Russia is getting higher and higher.
Icon: The mirror
Collaboration: Alexander Chernyshev
