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'The Government Is Very Afraid': Meet Moscow's New Opposition Leader, Lyubov Sobol
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/21/752912770/the-government-is-very-afraid-meet-moscow-s-new-opposition-leader-lyubov-sobolLyubov Sobol looks frail after ending a monthlong hunger strike. The unexpected protagonist of equally unexpected anti-government demonstrations in the Russian capital this summer, she speaks softly and chooses her words deliberately.
"My daughter is 5 years old," she says in an interview with NPR. "I want her to live in a country where human rights and freedoms are respected, where the courts are independent, and where there is a free press. I want her to live in this country. I don't want to move away."
This spring, the 31-year-old lawyer, a longtime ally of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, decided to run for Moscow's city council. When the city's election commission barred her and other opposition candidates from the Sept. 8 ballot, Sobol declared a hunger strike and called on supporters to take to the street.
Her tenacity in standing up to the authorities, combined with the savvy use of social media, has put her at the center of attention as a new protest leader. In July, as guards carried her out of Moscow's election commission on the couch on which she was staging a sit-in, Sobol documented the surreal scene on her smartphone with a running commentary.
"My daughter is 5 years old," she says in an interview with NPR. "I want her to live in a country where human rights and freedoms are respected, where the courts are independent, and where there is a free press. I want her to live in this country. I don't want to move away."
This spring, the 31-year-old lawyer, a longtime ally of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, decided to run for Moscow's city council. When the city's election commission barred her and other opposition candidates from the Sept. 8 ballot, Sobol declared a hunger strike and called on supporters to take to the street.
Her tenacity in standing up to the authorities, combined with the savvy use of social media, has put her at the center of attention as a new protest leader. In July, as guards carried her out of Moscow's election commission on the couch on which she was staging a sit-in, Sobol documented the surreal scene on her smartphone with a running commentary.
Really, really not looking forward to listening to my Green friends tell me why she's actually awful, but that inevitably will happen.
3 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Oh, there are some around even here. Someone surprised me by saying she was a Green just last week, in fact, but I don't think she's involved enough to know what she was claiming.
That certainly explains your comment. Sad, actually. Early when the Green Party organized in LA I thought it sounded like it was for me, but a wide variety of wingnuts had already flooded in and the environmental cause was already under water. Great name, though. Maybe Tom Steyer could buy it. Putin likes populist 'rousers, just not on his turf.
to Ms. Sobol and the many others.
