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(297,026 posts)Police officers detain an opposition supporter during an unauthorized rally in support of Alexei and Oleg Navalny in central Moscow, Dec. 30, 2014.
Russia's top opposition leader Alexei Navalny on December 30, 2014, called for mass protests to "destroy" President Vladimir Putin's regime after a court handed him a suspended sentence and jailed his brother in a controversial fraud case.
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/protests-put-down-in-russia-after-dissenter-sentenced/
Alexei Navalny sentenced to five years in prison
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to five years in prison at the end of a trial that was seen as politically motivated.
Navalny was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs after the judge, Sergei Blinov, ended a three-hour verdict reading by finding him guilty of embezzlement. He hugged his wife, Yulia, and was led away by police.
On Thursday night, thousands of Russians flooded the main arteries leading to the Kremlin, demanding his freedom and calling for the ousting of the president, Vladimir Putin. Dozens were detained.
An anti-corruption activist who became the most popular figure to emerge from protests that erupted around Putin's return to the Kremlin last year, Navalny was accused of embezzlement, and a handful of other charges, after Putin unleashed a crackdown on the opposition in the wake of his inauguration.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/18/alexei-navalny-five-years-prison-russia
This is their putin.. charming.