Jailed Navalny calls for anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday

Putin needs some plausible excuse to scale back his "special operation" without looking like a lightweight or a loser, and big protests throughout Russia would give him just that. So this is a very shrewd move by Navalny that just might work to tip things over, even though you would rightly expect such protests to be generally ineffective.

Re: Jailed Navalny calls for anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday

#8

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:34 AM UTC

I don't understand the balance of civil rights and government power in Russia. It's obviously not a free state, and the government has a pretty free hand to arrest protesters, suppress the press, etc. But Navalny is somehow still able to communicate from jail? Wouldn't it be easy to prevent that, for Putin or whoever else he annoys? Does his high profile make it harder to keep him incommunicado (ed: or heavily censor his comms)? Or should we assume that "from his Instagram" doesn't necessarily require the actual man's input, as long as the account is controlled by people who (even approximately) agree with him?

Re: Jailed Navalny calls for anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday

#9

Post by aaomidi » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:39 AM UTC

anonuser123456 wrote: post #5

Serious question. How has this guy not fallen out of his jail cell window? What are the politics that keeps him alive?

A lot of dictators have either propped up a specific opposition. Sometimes the person being propped up knows they're a puppet. Sometimes they don't.

I'm not necessarily saying that's what's happening here. But navanly isn't the savior that most russians would back. The really strong and unifying opposition though generally disappears.

Re: Jailed Navalny calls for anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday

#10

Post by prostoalex » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #8

I don't understand the balance of civil rights and government power in Russia. It's obviously not a free state, and the government has a pretty free hand to arrest protesters, suppress the press, etc. But Navalny is somehow still able to communicate from jail? Wouldn't it be easy to prevent that, for Putin or whoever else he annoys? Does his high profile make it harder to keep him incommunicado (ed: or heavily censor…

From my understanding, to protect themselves and claim that they were "just following orders" Russian corrections officers follow the letter of the law, which (as of now) still allows personal attorney visits.

The state might not make it easy, and move the prisoner to a facility in some remote part of Siberia, but unless rule books are re-written, the corrections officers have to reluctantly comply.