Icon: enlarge
Protest against Navalny's arrest in Moscow
Photo: ANATOLY MALTSEV / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
The Russian government is trying by all means to stop the opposition in the country and especially Alexei Navalny's supporters.
The authorities fined online networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and YouTube for disseminating calls for protests against minors.
The platforms did not comply with the regulations to delete calls to minors to participate in the unauthorized meetings on January 23, it said from the Russian telecommunications supervisory authority Roskomnadzor.
According to the authority, the fines are between 800,000 and four million rubles (the equivalent of between 8,700 and 43,600 euros).
After a call by the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, tens of thousands of people across Russia demonstrated against President Vladimir Putin and for Navalny's release last weekend.
According to a count by the non-governmental organization OWD-Info, almost 3900 participants in the rallies were arrested.
Supporters of the opposition have called for demonstrations again this coming weekend.
Russian police also searched Navalny's Moscow apartment on Wednesday.
As his colleague Ivan Zhdanov announced via Twitter, Navalny's wife Julia Navalnaya was in the apartment.
Navalny's brother was staying in a second ransacked apartment in Moscow.
The police cited health law violations as the reason for the search.
An office of the anti-corruption foundation Navalnys will also be searched, wrote Zhdanov.
Navalny was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on January 17 after his return from Germany.
He had been flown to Berlin for treatment after being seriously poisoned in Russia.
Navalny blames the Russian authorities for his poisoning.
According to research by SPIEGEL, the investigative platforms Bellingcat and The Insider as well as the US television broadcaster CNN, a team of at least eight agents from the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB was involved in the poisoning of Navalny with the neurotoxin Novichok in August last year.
The alleged bombers may have been involved in attacks on other activists.
Icon: The mirror
as / AFP
