“WE ARE NOT AFRAID”: PROTEST IN RUSSIA, 31 JANUARY 2021
Anti-Putin Protests: Second Nationwide Rally
KREMLIN CRACKS DOWN ON THE OPPOSITION THE WEEK PRIOR TO PROTESTS
On January 31, 2021, over 5,000 people were arrested in over 80 cities for protesting the injustice and corruption of the Russian government and demand freedom for Alexey Navalny, the opposition leader currently in prison and facing a sentence in a fraudulent court case. 200 children and 93 journalists were arrested nationwide. Protests were dispersed by the police and riot police. The security forces beat the protesters with batons and used electric shockers and gas. The most popular chant was “Putin is a thief!” Small towns and villages stepped out in the streets.
This was a second rally: On January 23, 2021, unprecedented mass protests rolled over 120 cities, with estimated 300,000 protesters, and 4,000 arrested. In Moscow, the detention centers were full, with 1,500 arrested and 40 protestors were driven around the city in police vans.
During the week prior to the “unsanctioned” protest, as 142 cities were planning to step out in the streets on January 31, 2021, authorities arrested and sentenced to home arrest without access to the Internet and right to communication dozens of Navalny’s team coordinators, activists, and allies Authorities cited a newly adopted Article 236 of the Criminal Code, a “violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules.” Their apartments and offices were searched and electronic devices and equipment confiscated. In many cases, lawyers were not allowed to be present during arrests. Police tracking devices, handcuffs, intimidation, demonstrative arrests, and violence all over Russia were intended to stop the Russian citizens from expressing their outrage at the government. The Kremlin’s message was loud and clear, “There would be no mercy.”
In response, Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, in his address, said, “You can’t intimidate us. We are the majority. Those tens of millions of people who have been robbed by this government cannot be intimidated, despite the fact that, of course, the people under arrest are suffering. But I am glad that more and more people understand now that the law is on our side and that the truth is on our side, and we will not allow a bunch of evil people to impose their orders in our country.” On January 28, a Moscow court turned down the appeal for Navalny’s release. Earlier, the court sentenced Navalny to 30 days stay in prison as he is facing a sentence in a fraudulent court case.
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund called on Biden’s administration to impose personal sanctions on 35 Putin’s cronies, oligarchs, officials, media figures.
GOVERNMENT TAKES PRECAUTIONS
On the day of the planned protest, Moscow police closed seven metro stops downtown, as well as shops, cafes, and restaurants.
In many cities, local authorities took measures to stop people from joining the protest. Free concerts and festivals were announced on Sunday, the day of protest, disregarding the COVID regulations. In Ufa, students were prohibited to leave the dorm on the day of protest. In other cities, colleges threatened to expel students for participation in demonstrations.
In most cities, there was an unprecedented mobilization of the security forces. Central parts of major cities were blocked. Hundreds of police officers and security services were deployed to prevent rallies. “I have never been to the occupied territories, but I think it must look something like this. We were occupied and we did not notice,” tweeted an observer.
In most cities, there was an unprecedented mobilization of the security forces, with central parts blocked by police. Hundreds of police officers and law enforcement were deployed to prevent rallies. “I have never been to the occupied territories, but I think it must look something like this. We were occupied and we did not notice,” tweeted an observer.
Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor attempted to delete social media calls for protest and summoned the representatives of Facebook, TikTok, VK, Telegram to warn about the consequences for failure to delete calls to protest. Bots and trolls spread pro-Kremlin and anti-opposition conspiracy theories on social media. The top-two trending hashtag was “President is My Friend.” (Президент Мой Друг.)
PROTESTS: RUSSIA ON THIN ICE
Protests started in the Far East and Siberia, in many cities and smaller towns, such as Blagoveschensk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk, Magadan, Barnaul, Ukhta, with thousands chanting “Putin is a thief!” Authorities underreported the number of protestors, minimizing it, and made many arrests in order to intimidate people in the European part of Russia and prevent them from protesting in the streets.
Getting to the protest was not an easy task as one had to walk in the freezing temperatures through police lines, blocked streets and without the help of GPS.
FROM FAR EAST TO EUROPEAN PART OF RUSSIA: PUTIN IS A THEIF
In Vladivostok, protestors were detained on their way to the protest.
Police blocked access to the central square and pushed the protestors on the ice of the Japan sea where people danced a folk dance, chanting, “Putin is a thief!”
In Yakutsk, with temperatures below -45F, people chanted, “We are for human rights!” One Tweeter user wrote, “I can say that our action is done for today: the riot police “finished it off.” I don’t consider this action a success. Yakutsk is a bit cowardly, silent and inexperienced but the fact that we gathered, walked & said the right things means a lot to me. I want someone to applaud me and say that I’m great. All this time, my frozen fingers were typing promptly about what was happening in Yakutsk, despite the -45 degree.”
In Khabarovsk, amidst ice and snow sculptures, several hundred police and riot police officers blocked all approaches to Lenin Square and young and old protestors were arrested.
In Irkutsk, the police circled the protestors. People chanted: “Shame, shame, shame!” and Putin, get out! You and your National Guard!”
In Tomsk, the crowd chanted, “Freedom to Aleksey Navalny!” “I am for all except for Putin. This regime must go,” said one protestor, a housewife.
In Ulan-Ude, a man was arrested for chanting, “For free Russia!” A journalist asked him, “And what kind of Russia do we have now?” “Corrupt,” said the man, lead away by riot police down Revolution street.
In Omsk, 2,000–3,000 were chanting “Putin is a thief” and “Down with the Tsar.” Protestors approached a church and police said that the church was closed on Sunday. Russian Orthodox churches have services on Sundays.
In Novosibirsk, people chanted, “Three, two, one. Putin is not for us! One two, three, Putin go away.” We tracked the journey of one poster, “Freedom to my Motherland!”
“I am here because I want to live in a free country!” said one young woman in Novosibirsk. On Dostoevsky street, police surrounded a column of demonstrators and loaded everyone into a police van. A fun fact: Dostoevsky was arrested and sentenced to execution by a firing squad but sent to Siberia instead.
In Barnaul, heartbreaking footage of a journalist being arrest during a live-stream. After filming an arrest, a journalist was attacked by a police officer and thrown face down in an ambulance van. Police were informed on the radio that there was a live stream. and They returned his phone and let him go. He continued reporting.
In Ekaterinburg, the crowd was marching by the store “Belarusan Products” (groceries) with “Mountains of Gifts” advertising above it. The irony of today’s world is not lost on those who follow the current events. Belarusan people have been protesting their dictator Lukashenko since August 2020. Chants included, “Fascists!” aimed at riot police.
In Ekaterinburg, like in Vladivostok, police pushed protestors on the pond ice.
In Novokuznetsk, “there are more police officers than ordinary people…I asked to explain why they were being detained. They said the postman was robbed. It seems that everyone was detained,” said a protestor.
In Chelyabinsk, people chanted, “Putin is a thief! Putin is a thief! Putin is a thief!” Riot police brutally attacked the protestors, beating them with batons. “This is inhuman,” shouted the woman nearby. “Animals! My God! How did we live to see this!”
In response, people made a chain in front of riot police and chant, “We are not armed.”
In Orenburg, a 16-year-old, reportedly the organizer, and a former activist of Navalny’s headquarters were arrested. In a small town of Nizhny Tagil, demonstrators chanted, “We are the power here!”
In Perm, protestors were met by horseback police. An instant flashback for Russian history students: Tsar’s police, January 22, 1905, Bloody Sunday Massacre.
In Krasnoyarsk, protestors were circled by police.
Yet, they kept their spirits up and danced a folk ring dance, khorovod, singing, “Putin is a thief!”
In Ufa, an elderly woman was carried into a police van.
In Ulyanovsk, Lenin’s hometown, the police threw an arrested man, a bare stomach on the snow covered asphalt.
In Pskov, 15 people were arrested.
In Rostov-na-Donu, there were brutal arrests as well.
In Volgograd, protesters were being detained by unidentified individuals in plain clothes, black hats and black medical masks.
Nizhni Novgorod was nearly occupied by riot police, troops, National Guard.
In Sochi, random pedestrians were arrested, including children with toys, a couple with a dog, and tourists. The journalist who reported the story was arrested, too.
In Kazan, riot police put people face down in the snow.
In Krasnodar, people were arrested and put in police vans.
MOSCOW
The first arrests in Moscow happened two hours before the planned protest.
Julia Navalnaya, Aleksey Navalny’s wife posted on Instagram, saying: “If we stay silent, tomorrow they will come for all of us. A random, scared person hiding in a luxury bunker is deciding our fate. He decides whom to poison, and whom to imprison. This shouldn’t be this way. And it won’t.” She later joined protestors in the streets and was arrested.
People were carrying gold-painted toilet brushes, as a reference to a $2,000 toilet brush in a $1.4 billion Versailles-like Putin’s palace as reported in Navalny’s expose video released two weeks ago. By now, the video has got 109 million views and forced Vladimir Putin and the Russian government to come up with explanations.
Crowds on Sakharov Prospect in Moscow chanted, “Freedom! Freedom!” Sakharov was an activist for human rights, who had to live and work in exile in the USSR.
Unidentified persons in civilian clothes detained people in some districts in Moscow. Protestors were standing up to them and tough battles ensued. Police used martial arts moves, twisting people’s arms behind their backs.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers were deployed all over Moscow. Riot police picked random people from the crowd, chased them, and detained them.
They clearly did not have sympathy for protestors. Riot police were seen erasing slogans written in snow on the balustrades.
Protestors were not intimidated.
A big group marched toward “Sailor’s Silence” prison where Navalny was held.
Over 1,500 were arrested in Moscow.
ST. PETERSBURG
In St.Petersburg, people were only allowed to walk down the main street, Nevsky prospect, on showing documents hours. People had to show their IDs and beg to get to work. As a result, the gathering point had to be changed from downtown to a children's theater within an hour of the rally start.
Police caught up quickly and soon protestors by the theater started to get arrested.
People showed creativity. Posters read, “Bunker grandpa is afraid of me” and “Russia has two problems: Novichok and starichok (little old man).”
“For Your Freedom and Ours — and His” read one poster, as a reference to a famous poster from 1968 protest against the Soviet occupation of Prague (protestors spent years in prison for 5 min demonstration.) “One for all and all for one”, a popular chant and slogan for these protests is a reference to Alexander Dumas’ novel “Three Musketeers” and the 19th-century code of honor.
Many were arrested for holding posters.
Actors were looking from the windows of the theater at the theater of absurd spectacle unrolling outside. Observers estimated that there were 2,000 protestors by the Children’s theater.
In other districts, riot police arrested and pushed protestors off the streets.
Chants included “Off with the Tsar!”, “Fascists” and “Putin is a thief!”
One protestor fainted after five riot police officers beat him up with batons. Police used tear gas and tasers and made intimidating noise by stomping feet and beating the shields.
Like in Vladivostok and Ekaterinburg, protestors were blocked from the streets and had to walk over the iced-clad river. They wrote “Navalny” in the snow.
Young and old were arrested.
4,000 people gathered by the Legislative Assembly in St.Isaac’s square. They were confronted by 300 riot policemen in full gear.
SUMMARY
Over 4,000 people arrested in 85 cities. 82 journalists detained. The most popular chant was “Putin is a thief!” Small towns and villages stepped out in the streets.
Navalny’s team called for protestors in Moscow to gather in front of the court on February 2, saying “Our regional headquarters leaders are in special detention centers. Anti-Corruption Fund employees are under house arrest. Alexei is in a pre-trial detention center.
Putin has never been so afraid of us. It is because we are stronger than crooks in power.
There are a lot of us. The truth is on our side.”
**Note: This is a follow-up to the day of live-reporting on January 31, 2021. An article in The Byline Time is forthcoming on February 2, 2021.
****All photos are from courageous Russian journalists and protestors. Media Zona, МБХ, Znak, RusNews, Fontanka.ru, Telegram channels of Navalny team. Many thanks to all who risked their life and freedom to make the world a better place.
