Russian authorities have added imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and some of his top allies to the country’s registry of terrorists and extremists.
Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, and eight of his allies were on Tuesday added to the registry by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service. The law requires that the bank accounts of those on the list be frozen.
The move comes just over a year after Navalny’s arrest, which triggered a wave of the biggest mass protests across the country in years. The politician was detained upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied any involvement.
Navalny was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 fraud conviction.
In the following months, Navalny’s brother Oleg and many of his top allies also faced criminal charges, and the authorities outlawed his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a sprawling network of regional offices as extremist.
Russian authorities have also ratcheted up pressure on independent media and human rights groups in recent months. Dozens have been labeled as foreign agents.
Some were declared “undesirable” — a label that outlaws organizations in Russia — or were accused of links to “undesirable” groups, and several were forced to shut down or disband to prevent further prosecution.
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