You're reading: Putin foe charged, Russian opposition fear KGB tactics

MOSCOW - Russian investigators charged street protest leader Alexei Navalny with theft on Tuesday and banned him from leaving the country, threatening a heavy jail term in what supporters say is a growing crackdown on dissent by President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has organised
demonstrations that have dented Putin’s authority, dismissed the
charge as absurd and other opposition leaders accused Putin of
using KGB-style tactics to try to silence his critics.

Other moves which the opposition depict as a crackdown on
dissent since Putin began a six-year term in May include a law
increasing fines for protesters, closer controls of the Internet
and tighter rules for foreign-funded campaign and lobby groups.

Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said in a statement
that Navalny, 36, had been charged over the theft of timber from
a state firm while he was advising a regional governor in 2009,
and he could face a 10-year sentence.

“I have been charged and ordered not to leave,” Navalny said
after emerging from the Investigative Committee headquarters,
where he had been summoned for the presentation of what he had
expected would be a less severe charge.

“This is really quite absurd and very strange because they
have completely changed the essence of the accusation, compared
to what it was before,” Navalny, who had been questioned
repeatedly since the case was opened in 2010, told reporters.

He made clear he would not be silenced. “I will continue to
do what I have been doing, and in this sense nothing changes for
me,” said Navalny, a lawyer. “We believe that what is happening
now is illegal. We will use the methods of legal defence at our
disposal. What else can we do?”

Navalny is one of the few people seen as capable of emerging
as a viable leader of the fractious opposition, although critics
say he has nationalist tendencies.

He gained prominence by fighting corruption at
state-controlled companies and used the Internet to do so,
appealing to a tech-savvy generation of urban Russians who have
turned away from the mainstream media.

Before parliamentary elections last December he helped to
energise a struggling opposition, popularising a phrase
referring to the ruling United Russia party, then headed by
Putin, as the “party of swindlers and thieves”.

He was also among the leaders of large protests prompted by
allegations of fraud in the election on behalf of United Russia,
which saw its big majority in parliament cut to a handful of
seats despite the accusations that it had cheated.

“MORTAL FEAR”

“This case has been fabricated from beginning to end,” said
Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who is a prominent
Putin opponent. “The true reason for what is happening is
Putin’s mortal fear of losing power … He is wildly afraid of
the opposition, including Navalny.”

In a reference to the Cheka secret police, a precursor of
the Soviet KGB, Nemtsov said: “Putin is using traditional
Chekist methods … Fabricated cases, charges, arrests, jail.”

Putin won a presidential election on March 4 despite the
largest protests since the start of his 12-year rule, during
which he has served as president for eight years and as premier
for four. At times attendance at the rallies reached more than
100,000, witnesses said, although they have become less frequent
since Putin returned to power.

But opponents say a series of steps he has taken in recent
months to tighten control show the former KGB spy is worried
about losing his grip on the world’s largest country.

Putin, who has repeatedly warned against rocking the boat in
speeches since his election, signed a law on Monday toughening
punishment for defamation and another on Tuesday that opponents
say could be used to censor the Internet.

In a case which critics say will indicate how he plans to
treat opponents during his new term, three women from the punk
band “Pussy Riot” went on trial on Monday over an unsanctioned
protest performance at the altar of Russia’s main cathedral,
where they called on the Virgin Mary to “throw Putin out!”

Their trial entered its second day on Tuesday in a Moscow
court, and they face up to seven years in jail over a protest
they say was aimed against the close relationship between Putin
and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Navalny had been detained and served brief terms in custody
several times over administrative offences linked to the
protests, but had never been charged with a more serious crime.

Lawyers for Navalny had said on Friday they expected he
would be charged over the case in Kirov province. But they had
expected him to face a different charge punishable by up to five
years in jail, rather than 10.

The Investigative Committee said more than 10,000 cubic
meters of timber were stolen as the result of a plot between
Navalny and two company chiefs, causing the regional government
to lose more than 16 million roubles ($497,000).