RUSSIA has handed short-term jail sentences to six protestors who had rallied against the imprisonment of a prominent local activist earlier this week, a regional court announced today.  

Protestors and riot police clashed in two days of protests in a small town in Russia’s central Bashkortostan in a rare show of public dissent amid Moscow’s intense crackdown of regime critics.  

A court in the regional capital of Ufa earlier handed six people arrested in protests on January 15 jail sentences of between 10-13 days for organising an unsanctioned rally, the court said in a social media post.  

Regional authorities have pledged a swift response to the rare protests, which saw thousands take to the streets of Baymak, a small town 1,400km east of Moscow, in temperatures of -20°C.  

Investigators have opened criminal cases on the grounds of “mass rioting” and assaulting police officers – charges which carry maximum penalties of up to 15 years.  

Police used tear gas to disperse a second day of demonstrations yesterday after clashes outside a courtroom where local activist Fail Alsynov was sentenced to four years in prison for “inciting hatred”.  

Alsynov is a prominent local environmental activist and campaigner for the protection of the Bashkir language and culture.  

He has denied the accusations against him, saying the charges – of allegedly making a racist statement about people from Central Asia and the Caucasus – are based on a mistranslation of a speech he gave in Bashkir.  

The head of the regional parliament today said the protestors had been whipped up by provocations from abroad – a common claim by Russian officials to explain unrest.  

“The gathering of people at the courthouse in Baymak caused a real stir, most of all, among those who have left Russia and are now trying to denigrate our country and its people,” Konstantin Tolkachev, chairman of the Bashkortostan state assembly said today.  

He added that forces abroad were trying to “disrupt the situation in our republic”, according to a statement published on the assembly’s Telegram channel.  

Russia has strict laws against protests that essentially ban all public shows of opposition.  

Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has escalated a decade-long crackdown dissent, handing out lengthy prison sentences to critics.  

Jailed activist leader Alsynov, whose sentencing triggered the protests, had publicly criticised Moscow’s mobilisation drive for the offensive. – AFP, January 18, 2024.