Alexey Navalny heads back to court next Monday, and he'll probably spend Election Day in jail

As expected, Alexey Navalny will likely spend Russia’s Election Day behind bars. Moscow’s Tver Court has announced that he will be arraigned on Monday, March 5, for repeatedly violating statutes on public assemblies.

On January 28, Navalny helped organize nationwide rallies to promote a voters’ boycott of the presidential election. If given the maximum jail sentence, he wouldn’t go free until April 4 — seventeen days after Vladimir Putin’s almost certain re-election. Jailing Navalny roughly two weeks before the vote and for more than two weeks afterwards is presumably the authorities’ strategy for suppressing potential anti-Kremlin protests.

On February 22, Navalny’s campaign manager and right-hand man Leonid Volkov was jailed for 30 days on the same charges. He won’t go free until March 24, six days after the vote.