Actions supporting Yulia Navalnaya and female political prisoners sweep across Russia
The headquarters of politician Alexei Navalny recently announced an all-Russian action “Love is stronger than fear” for February 14, whose participants were to go out into the courtyards and switch on the flashlights on their telephones. In several cities in the east of the country, the action started even earlier.
In Moscow and St. Petersburg, women held their own rallies and took to the streets with white ribbons and flowers, demanding the release of all political prisoners. This is reminiscent of events in Belarus last year on August 12, when 250 women with flowers and wearing white marched on Komarovka in Minsk to protest the violence.
In St. Petersburg, a rally of solidarity with Yulia Navalnaya and other women took place near the monument to victims of political repression.
At the end of the action in St. Petersburg, participants in the solidarity chain laid flowers at the monument to victims of political repression. No one was detained, Mediazona reported.
In Moscow on Old Arbat near a monument to the poet Alexander Pushkin and Natalia Goncharova, activists also formed a live chain of solidarity in support of Yulia Navalova and women political prisoners. Strangers handed out tea and flowers to the girls.
According to White Counter calculations, 235 people took part in the Moscow action.
The women’s action in Moscow was attended by provocateurs with children’s machine guns and helmets marked “NATO,” who tried to hand out fake money to the girls, supposedly for taking part in the action.
The women’s solidarity rallies lasted about two hours, passed peacefully and without detention.
