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Alexej Navalny at a demonstration in Moscow in February 2020. After his arrest, the Russian authorities take action against the opposition party Lyubov Sobol (left), among others
Photo:
Shamil Zhumatov / REUTERS
The police came to his hotel at Wladlen Los.
Fifteen officers picked up the lawyer from the Anti-Corruption Foundation from Alexei Navalny, only to tell him at a Moscow police station that he had been banned from entering the country until January 2023.
"I was told to leave Russia by January 25," he wrote on Twitter.
Los is a citizen of Belarus, he slept in the hotel because his apartment was monitored, he said.
It wasn't the only arrest on Thursday: Lyubov Sobol, Navalny's supporter and producer of his YouTube channel, was also taken away.
A video showed how the Kremlin critic was asked by several police officers to get out of her lawyer's car to come to the police station.
A police bus was already waiting for them.
"What is this circus doing?" She commented on the behavior of the officers.
The independent broadcaster TV Rain reported that she was charged with calling for unauthorized protests.
Calls for demonstrations in more than 60 cities
Navalny, who has been in custody since Monday evening, called for protests in a video from the police station before he was transferred to prison.
The anti-corruption fund of the opposition also released a new unveiling film, which for the first time concerns Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
It's about a palace on the Black Sea - and Putin's family.
Meanwhile, Nawalny's colleagues announced demonstrations in more than 60 cities for Saturday.
In Russia, protests by the opposition are rarely approved by the authorities, so that it is hardly possible for critics of the Russian regime to demonstrate with approval.
Several Navalny employees, members of the opposition and journalists had already received visits from police officers at home on Thursday, including Sobol.
The police wanted to read and hand over warnings from the public prosecutor's office before the protests.
The calls for the protests on Saturday spread millions of times on social media, and they were called more than 200 million times on TikTok alone, where young Russians in particular are active.
The General Prosecutor's Office asked the Telecommunications Authority Roskomnadzor to block such "illegal" calls for demonstrations.
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