Sergei Ilnitsky EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
MOSCOW — Russian authorities have jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, arrested his staff and supporters and even independent journalists who covered protest rallies last week in his support. On Friday at about 6.40 a.m., agents from Russia’s internal security agency, the FSB, knocked on the hotel room door of his attorney, Ivan Pavlov.
Pavlov is acting for Navalny in the case by prosecutors to ban three Navalny organizations in a closed court hearing where much of the evidence is a state secret. The lawyer was arrested and charged Friday with disclosing preliminary investigation data in a case.
The arrest came the morning after he challenged the secrecy of the evidence in the case to designate the Navalny organizations as “extremist” groups. Colleagues said Pavlov had earlier been threatened with jail by FSB officials.
Pavlov, head of a prominent group of rights lawyers, Team 29, is known for taking on the most difficult cases. He was due to appear in court Friday for Ivan Safronov, a former journalist and adviser to the head of the Roscosmos space agency who faces treason charges.
It was not known which case triggered the charge against Pavlov. If convicted, he could be stripped of his right to practice law.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was not following the case, and he did not comment on reports that Pavlov was threatened by the FSB.
“I don’t know whether it is true, whether it was really so. And I don’t know the charges against Pavlov,” Peskov said.
Agents of the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, also raided the St. Petersburg home of Team 29’s technical specialist, Igor Dorfman, and broke his door. They also raided the home of Pavlov’s wife in St. Petersburg and the office of Team 29 there.
The arrests come amid a sweeping crackdown on Navalny’s staff, offices and activists who supported him. Many of his staff fled overseas and others are under house arrest in Moscow. A number of independent journalists who covered protests in support of Navalny last week have been arrested in recent days.
St. Petersburg police opened a criminal case Thursday investigating an anonymous graffiti artist who created a street mural of Navalny in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, with the words, “Hero of a new time.” The mural was painted over within hours of its appearance.
Pavlov’s arrest was announced by Team 29 on its website and social media accounts.
[Kremlin critic Navalny calls Putin a ‘naked king’ as opposition offices disband]
Pavlov on Thursday accused Russian authorities of abusing the secret classification of case materials in the extremism case to hide material that should not be secret. He filed a countersuit the same day to declassify them.
He said that the 900 pages of “classified” materials were merely a list of the many legal actions mounted by authorities against Navalny, his people and his organizations. They amounted to a “biography” of Navalny’s persecution, he said.
If confirmed by the court, the ban would make it impossible for Navalny’s groups to continue their work exposing corruption or seeking political office.
Navalny’s headquarters and network of nearly 40 regional offices disbanded on Thursday, announcing they were convinced the ban would be confirmed by the court and that they needed to protect staff, activists and supporters.
The proposed ban would be one of the most sweeping measures to repress freedom of speech and to destroy Navalny’s opposition movement since the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, rights groups contend.
In a statement Thursday, Pavlov said that from the outset of the case, the classification of the materials “seemed illegal.”
“Information about human rights violations is definitely not a state secret,” he said. He said if the information was falsely classified, the entire case would amount to a violation of the rights of the organizations facing the ban.
[Russian court suspends Navalny’s political headquarters while it considers banning his organizations]
Navalny is serving a jail term of more than 2½ years in a case he calls political. He was arrested on his return from Germany, where he received treatment last year after being poisoned in August with a banned chemical nerve agent. Navalny, the United States and the European Union have blamed the attack on the Russian state.
Earlier this week, the court suspended the activities of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and Navalny’s headquarters pending the court’s decision on the request for a ban. In a bizarre twist, the Moscow court suspended “certain activities” of the Anti-Corruption Foundation on Tuesday, but its news service declined to list them because they are secret.
News emerged Thursday of another criminal charge against Navalny and his allies Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov for setting up an organization that “infringes on the person and rights of citizens.” The alleged offense carries a penalty of up to four years in prison. Volkov, Zhdanov and other Navalny allies have fled the country, while dozens of others have been arrested.
An attorney with Team 29, Yevgeny Smirnov, said Pavlov often received threats from the FSB, including from a colonel who told the lawyer he was getting in the way and the agency would do everything it could to see him jailed.
“This is a blow to the protection of those clients who we are defending, but we will continue out work on their cases,” said Smirnov.
Pavlov also filed a motion Thursday for Navalny to be able to attend the court hearings on the ban in person since he was directly affected by the case.
After two procedural hearings, the case will proceed next month.
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