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Andrey Smirnov / AFP - Getty Images
Russian opposition activist and blogger Alexei Navalny (center) is detained by the police on Oct. 27 during a protest over a wave of arrests and allegations that an opposition leader was tortured.
MOSCOW -- Russia has opened a criminal investigation against opposition leader Alexei Navalny on suspicion of fraud and money laundering, the federal investigative committee said Friday.
Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has organized protests in the past 12 months against President Vladimir Putin, already faces charges of theft that he says are politically motivated and part of a Kremlin clampdown on dissent.
Rock Center Correspondent Harry Smith journeys to Moscow, where he meets blogger Alexei Navalny, a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin and his party, United Russia. Navalny has galvanized protesters through social media and uses his website to expose alleged political corruption. The surging public outrage has left some wondering if a movement is afoot in Russia similar to that of last year's Arab Spring.
The federal investigative committee, a government agency, said on its website that Navalny and his brother were being investigated over the alleged theft of $1.79 million by a trading company they are involved in.
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It announced the investigation one day before the opposition plans a new march against Putin in Moscow.
Navalny was not immediately available for comment. He has denied the earlier charges, over the alleged theft of timber from a state company in the Kirov region when he was advising the governor there in 2009.
Navalny is threatened with 10 years in jail if found guilty of the earlier charges.
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Typical Russian response to anyone who may be able to unseat Vladimir Putin and his KGB version of the Russian government. Arrest them on false charges. Put them in jail without charging them with anything. Search their property without a search warrant. Monitor their phone calls and those of friends and relatives. Seize their vehicles and bank accounts. Wait until after the next election, then set them free without ever having been charged with anything. That's also how Hugo Chavez works. North Korea just straps a mortar shell to your body and detonates it so there is absolutely no evidence you ever existed.
This is not at all unexpected. This guy has ruffled Putin's feathers and now he will pay for it. This is the way politics works in countries like Russia. Putin will see to it that anyone who becomes a serious challenge to his control over Russia ends up in prison or otherwise disgraced.
RUSSIA STILL HAS A LONG WAY TO GO IN BECOMING A TRUE DEMOCRACY. It shows very clearly that Putin is not a democrat.
Spot on, Putin would make the GOP proud.
Putin has absolute power in Russia. Here we go again. The last challenger is a young oligarch sitting in a jail cell for years on end...it's a joke. Putin is stealing that young man's life. It's disgusting. I thought Medvedev was actually a decent bloke...Putin? Not.
Please explain a true democracy now if you could please. The US isn't one. So many times the will of the people is ignored. As for the comment about the GOP, Democrats are closer to Marxist beliefs than Republicans.
Sorry but I think you live in a bubble. How is it that the Republicans are the keeper of democracy in this country when they seem to be the one party that wants to take away freedoms that NOBODY else would have thought of? Things like your right to vote, the pursuit of happiness (gay marriage), trying to overturn women's suffrage, wanting to basically overturn Civil rights legislation, wanting to basically enslave workers by disbanding workers rights and making us all wage slaves to ultra-wealthy "job creators". Hell, they were even trying to strike down child labor laws this summer! No this party wants to take us back to pre-Civil War America. We are moving closer and closer to the way the constitution is SUPPOSED to work and that party keeps trying to get rid of all those gains, yet you call the Democrats marxist? I don't get it, please explain.
Russian democracy- imprison anyone that runs against Putin, and poison any journalist that uncovers and reports his corruption.
Wow, this is the usual b*ll@!$%# brand of Russian democracy where you have free elections, but the guy currently in power can always trump up some charges against the opposition and throw them in jail. No opposition, easier to win an election. Not really news here.....
The Dems would have loved to do that to Romney. In 2 years of digging they couldn't find squat.
Dud get real, that's just a bunch of hyperbole. We don't do that over hear, we have never done that over hear, and we won't be in the near future. What are you talking about? There hasn't been one instance in American politics where this has happened. We don't throw the opposition in jail, If we did GWB would be there now. He did actually break quite a few international laws as well as constitutional laws against his own countrymen.
Russia has turned into a comic side show with its Chicago gangland style thuggery. Russia will finally get the respect that it has always wanted when this nonsense - from 1917 though now - stops. Then, the real Russia will have its place in world leadership. Not until then.
The time for protesting has past. It would be better to just leave the country, while it is still possible to do so.