Appeals hearing on the decision to jail Alexey Navalny set for January 28

The Moscow Regional Court will consider an appeal against the decision to jail opposition figure Alexey Navalny on Thursday, January 28, his lawyer Olga Mikhailova told Meduza. 

According to Mikhailova, the hearing is set to begin at 2:00 p.m., Moscow time. Navalny has requested to participate directly in the appeals hearing. 

However, spokespeople for the court told MBX Media that they had no information about the appeals hearing having been scheduled already.

On Twitter, the head of Navalny’s regional network, Leonid Volkov, said that the court date was scheduled “quite suddenly.” 

On January 17, Alexey Navalny was arrested upon returning to Russian from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from Novichok-type nerve agent poisoning. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) had filed a complaint against Navalny for violating the terms of his probation in the Yves Rocher case while abroad. On January 18, the Khimki City Court remanded Navalny in custody for 30 days during an extraordinary hearing at a police station. The Khimki Prosecutor’s Office later stated that the hearing was carried out legally. 

A hearing on the FSIN’s complaint against Navalny is scheduled for Tuesday, February 2. The Russian prison authorities are seeking to revoke Navalny’s probation (which technically ended on December 30, 2020) and incarcerate him under a reinstated 3.5-year sentence. Navalny’s associates are planning to hold a protest near the courthouse on that day; more rallies in support of Navalny are scheduled to take place on Sunday, January 31.

On January 23, protests opposing Navalny’s detention took place in dozens of cities across Russia. Russian law enforcement officials carried out a record-breaking number of arrests that day; more than 3,700 country wide, according to independent monitors.