Alexei Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and Putin s most prominent critic, was arrested in Moscow last month upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.
Rest of World News: MOSCOW: Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny returned to court on Saturday to hear his lawyers appeal against what they say was a politically-motivated decis.
19 February 2021
Olga Glace, Forum 18
Bailiffs accompanied by police used an angle grinder and a crowbar on 17 February to gain access to Minsk s New Life Pentecostal Church to evict it. Officials told the Church they were enforcing a 2009 court order. Aleksey Petrukovich, who signed the enforcement order, refused to explain why the eviction happened, and why force was used. I am indignant. This is a hostile takeover of church property with the excuse of official papers, Sergiy Melyanets, a member of a different Church who witnessed the eviction, told Forum 18.
On 17 February, police and court bailiffs forcibly evicted New Life Full Gospel Church from the building it has used in the capital Minsk since 2002. Some 30 bailiffs, police, and Housing Repairs and Utilities Association officials took part in the eviction. Bailiffs used an angle grinder to cut the door lock to gain entry.
Europe's rights court told Russia on Wednesday to release jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny out of concern for his life, but Moscow swiftly rejected the call.