https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/02/alexei-navalny-russias-24-carat-hero/
For those of us who had the misfortune to be born in the former USSR, the recent happenings in Russia are as fascinating as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Warsaw Pact and the regained independence of the USSR’s peripheral republics. Today, watching the TV footage of defiant and mostly young Russians turning out to protest the Putin regime and be arrested in their thousands, one cannot help but feel admiration for their bravery, sympathy for their cause and a deep chill at the thought of what might happen next.
That so many Russians have taken so eagerly to the streets, not only in Moscow but in regional centres across the country, braving bitter cold and a threat of violence by the hated siloviki militarised police, is unprecedented. Their movement’s leader and inspiration, Alexei Navalny, has just been sentenced to three-plus years on the most ridiculous of trumped-up charges. He was denied the help of a lawyer, and his supporters are being similarly treated — arrested in daily tranches for the threat their demands for democracy and reform pose to the regime. Of the matters on Vladimir Putin’s mind, the challenge Mr Navalny represents must right now be foremost. When more than 150,000 protesters fill Moscow’s streets, braving tear gas, water cannons and truncheons, the man who inspires such courage must be taken seriously.
Immediately upon his January 17 return to Russia from a Berlin clinic, where he was recovering after Putin’s henchmen almost succeeded in assassinating him with the Novichok poison, Navalny was dragged before a kangaroo court which ordered him detained him for 30 days pending trial for allegedly violating the parole terms associated with the suspended sentence he received in 2014 after being framed on charges of fraud. That conviction, assailed by the European Court of Human Rights as “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”, saw him denied a lawyer’s presence in court. Nor were members of the foreign and non-state media allowed to observe Putin’s version of ‘justice’ in action. Early in February, Navalny was hauled before one of Putin’s hack judges court, convicted and sentenced. Given that he is in custody, and in the light of the failed attempt on his life, the gravest fears must be held for his survival.