Hello everyone. I don’t know what to say really. We live in terrifying times and at the moment I can’t say that I feel safe in my own country. Here’s the article that I copied because I have a lump in my throat from crying because innocent people who wanted a peaceful gathering ended up in jails.
I’m scared for my family and friends, I’m scared for myself. I wasn’t participating, because I was working as a burlesque performer (everyone needs money for food right?). But I’d go if I could. Even under the fear of being beaten, I would go to defend my rights and civic position.
Here’s the article.
Mass protests swept across Russia on Saturday, after the arrest of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
From the frozen streets of Russia’s Far East and Siberia to the grand plazas of Moscow and St. Petersburg, tens of thousands of Russians rallied in support Navalny in what was emerging as the biggest nationwide showdown in years between the Russian authorities and critics of the Kremlin.
Thousands gathered in central Moscow. In Pushkin Square, people were flanked in every direction by riot police officers. Hundreds of people packed the sidewalks of one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares leading to the square, for at least half a mile. There were repeated tussles between protesters and the police.
In the cities of Vladivostok, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk in Siberia, footage showed crowds of well over 1,000 people. In Yakutsk, the world’s coldest city, scores of protesters in the freezing fog braved temperatures of minus 60 Fahrenheit. In Khabarovsk, the city on the Chinese border that was the site of anti-Kremlin protests last summer, hundreds who returned to the streets were met with an overwhelming force of riot police officers.
It appeared to be the biggest day of protest across the country since at least 2017, though it was far from clear whether the show of dissent would succeed in pushing the Kremlin to change course.
Navalny, a 44-year-old anticorruption activist who is the most prominent domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in Siberia in August in what Western officials have described as an assassination attempt by the Russian state. He was airlifted to Germany and recovered. Last Sunday, after flying home to Moscow, he was arrested at passport control.
After he was ordered jailed on Monday for an initial term of 30 days, his supporters called for protests — arguing that only pressure in the streets could avert what they describe as an attempt by Putin to sideline his most popular opponent.
Here are some pictures.
Thanks for reading. I hope you’re safe in your country.
❤️
@missy @penny @lemon @eirenne
