Russia jails blogger who planned to attend trial in support of accused anti-Jewish rioters

A court in Dagestan has jailed a local blogger and well-known sports commentator for illegal weapons possession. Police say they found a pistol and a live grenade on Ramazan Rabadonov’s person when they arrested him on November 6. 

Shamil Khadulaev, the deputy head of Dagestan’s public monitoring commission (a kind of human rights watchdog), has speculated that Rabadonov’s arrest is connected to his stated plan to attend courtroom hearings in the case against alleged perpetrators of the October 2023 anti-Jewish riots at Makhachkala Airport. Rabadonov has spoken out in support of the defendants. He reportedly told his family that the arresting officers planted the weapons on him.

Rabadonov’s son serves in the Russian military and is currently deployed to Ukraine. Following his father’s arrest, the young man released a video message asking Vladimir Putin to “sort out the situation,” calling the decision to jail his father “lawlessness and an outrage.”