Moscow
More than 1,400 protesters were detained by Russian authorities during rallies supporting Alexei Navalny, a civil monitoring group said on Wednesday. Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic was jailed for nearly three years amid international condemnation. The court’s decision on Tuesday to turn a 2014 suspended sentence into real jail time will see the 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner — who accuses Moscow of poisoning him last year — serve a lengthy prison term. Britain, France, Germany, the United States and the European Union denounced the ruling and called for his immediate release, as Moscow accused the West of interfering in its affairs.— AFP
