Moscow, SAEDNEWS, Jan. 25: President Vladimir Putin has described mass protests held at the weekend demanding the release of Alexey Navalny as illegal and dangerous, as he faces mounting pressure from the West and thousands of Russians over the leading Kremlin critic’s arrest.
Putin on Monday fielded questions from students in a video call from his Zavidovo residence after tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated against Navalny’s detention in several cities and towns on Saturday.
“All people have the right to express their point of view within the framework of the law. Everything that goes beyond the framework of the law is not only counterproductive but also dangerous,” he said.
“In the history of our country, we have repeatedly encountered situations when the situation went far beyond the law, and shook our society and the state, where not only people who were engaged in it suffered but also those people who had nothing to do with it.
“All these events about which I just talked about – no one should use them trying to reach their ambitious goals and objectives, especially in the field of politics. This is not how politics is done, at least not a responsible politics.”
Police detained more than 3,000 protesters and used force to break up the rallies, which saw people ignore extreme cold and police warnings to publicly call for the 44-year-old’s immediate release.
Several protesters were injured in clashes with riot police, the OVD-Info protest monitor group reported.
Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested on January 17 as he returned to Russia after five months in Germany spent recovering from an alleged poisoning he blames on the Kremlin.
The Kremlin says it has seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
After landing in Moscow and being immediately arrested, he was soon jailed for 30 days over alleged parole violations relating to a case dating back to 2014 over embezzlement charges which Navalny believes were politically motivated (Source: AlJazeera).
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