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Putin Critic Navalny Among 100+ Detained At Moscow Protest

Just hours after he was convicted of fraud and given a suspended sentence,Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and leading critic of Russian President Vladamir Putin, was detained for evading house arrest to join thousands at a protest near the Kremlin on Tuesday.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Alexei Navalny” author_title=”Critic of Vladamir Putin”]

I was detained. But they won’t be able to detain everyone.

[/quote]

Thousands showed up in Manezh Square to protest the convictions of Alexei and his brother Oleg, despite a warning from Alexei Mayorov, a security official in the Moscow mayor’s office who said any attempt to protest would be blocked, according to USA Today.

More than 200 people were detained at the rally, while many were pushed back by police into metro stations.

Police detained Navalny at the protest and took him back to his home, where he has been under house arrest since February. Navalny has said the legal cases against him and his brother are due to his opposition to Putin. He accused authorities of punishing him by jailing his brother, according to the BBC.

The United States said it was “troubled” by Navalny’s guilty verdict. Navalny is the most high-profile opposition figure in the country.

Navalny led mass protests against Russian President Putin three years ago as tens of thousands of people took to the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow to protest corruption in his government. Opposition figures have said that jailing Navalny would risk more protests so he was being punished by hurting his brother, according to CNBC.

The brothers were accused of stealing 30 million rubles, or $500,000, from two firms between 2008 and 2012.

The Russian punk group Pussy Riot released a video in support of the demonstration. Two performers with the group, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, spent almost two years in prison on charges of hooliganism for an anti-Putin protest in Moscow in 2012.

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