An activist has been jailed for walking around Moscow’s Red Square wearing a T-shirt demanding Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s release from prison.
A Moscow court on July 14 sentenced Vladislav Kazakov to 10 days in jail for violating laws on holding a public event.
Kazakov was detained in Red Square the day before while wearing a T-shirt with the inscription “Freedom for Navalny.”
Unidentified persons also set fire to his car, which had “Freedom for Navalny” written on the rear window.
Kazakov was formerly a volunteer at Navalny’s now-shuttered political offices in the southwestern city of Saratov.
Navalny, Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, was arrested in January upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — an accusation that Russian officials reject.
He was then sentenced in February to 2 1/2 years in prison in a case widely considered to be politically motivated.
In April, tens of thousands of people demonstrated for his release, following similar mass protests in January against his arrest.
