The Olympics Ae Over; Time to Arrest More People in Russia

[PrisonerOfHope]

The Olympics Ae Over, It’s Time to Arrest More People in Russia
No more Mr. Nice Putin. More than 200 activists were arrested in Moscow this week

Well, that didn’t last long.

Russian President Vladimir Putin played nice with his own citizens in front of the world in the months leading up to the Olympics. In December, he freed famous political prisoners like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of Pussy Riot and Greenpeace.

The closing ceremony in Sochi was Sunday. The very next day, Moscow police detained more than 200 activists for protesting against Putin, including those same members of Pussy Riot and well-known opposition leader Alexei Navalny.


Police detain opposition leader Alexei Navalny outside a courthouse in Moscow February 24, 2014. Russian police detained several protesters chanting "Freedom" on Monday outside a Moscow courthouse where a judge was expected to sentence eight defendants convicted of attacking police at an anti-government demonstration in 2012.

It gets even more meta: The Monday protesters were demonstrating against prison sentences handed down to other protesters. Known as the Bolotnaya Square case, eight protesters were found guilty of violence against police and rioting from a demonstration in the square in May 2012. It was one day before Putin re-assumed the Russian presidency.

Their sentences were announced Monday, which drew the activist crowds out in Moscow. Seven of the eight defendants were sentenced to a range of 2.5 to four years in prison. Human rights organization Amnesty International calls it “injustice at its most obvious.”

Punk protest band Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina is detained by police at a protest in central Moscow February 24, 2014. Russian riot police detained over a hundred protesters, including two members of Pussy Riot, on Monday at a Moscow courthouse where seven opponents of President Vladimir Putin were jailed from two and a half to four years over a demonstration that turned violent.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, prominent member of protest group Pussy Riot, outside a courthouse in Moscow on Feb. 24. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

For this week’s protests, Navalny and others have been sentenced to one week in prison. Some investigators want that sentence lengthened and Navalny under house arrest.

The Russian government didn’t completely back off protesters during the Olympics: LGBT activists in Moscow were arrested in Moscow, for trying to unfurl a huge banner across a bridge, and Pussy Riot was arrested in Sochi. They were also horsewhipped by Cossacks, which was caught on video, but Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak says those Cossacks are being “held accountable.” He wouldn’t specify exactly what that means, though; it doesn’t appear to mean prison terms like the Bolotnaya protesters and Navalny have received.


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