More than 10,000 people have been arrested in Russia since the start of the pro-Navalny protest movement on January 23, said the specialized NGO OVD-Info denouncing on Wednesday the degrading treatment inflicted on those arrested.
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Many demonstrators remained crowded into buses "
in terrible, suffocating conditions, without food and without being able to go to the toilet for long hours,
" OVD-Info official Grigori Dournovo told radio Ekho Moskvy.
Subsequently, “
it is very difficult for lawyers and jurists to access police stations.
They don't let them in, it becomes systematic,
”he added.
Since the first pro-Navalny protests on January 23, six days after the opponent's arrest, more than 10,000 people have been arrested in Russia according to OVD-Info accounts: 4,000 on January 23, 5,700 during the protests of the January 31 and 1400 Tuesday, after the conviction of Alexey Navalny to a prison sentence.
Numerous publications on Russian social networks and independent media report on the difficult conditions in which the arrested protesters are being held.
“
More than 40 hours have passed since our arrest (...) We are hardly fed.
For the past nine hours, we
've been
on a bus, forced to stand,
”one of them said in an Instagram video shared by Dojd TV on Tuesday.
Authorities are using yet other approaches to deter Russians from taking part in pro-Navalny protests.
The head of the Investigation Committee, Alexandre Bastrykine, said on Tuesday that checks would be made to ensure whether the men arrested had indeed performed their military service, which is compulsory in Russia.
The arrest and conviction of Alexei Navalny, as well as the crackdown on protests calling for his release, sparked an international outcry and many condemnations around the world, foreshadowing new Russian-Western tensions, with Moscow sweeping away criticism.
