Last week was a busy one for Russian authorities, who arrested the only nationally known opposition mayor for bribery, sought six years in prison for crusading blogger Alexei Navalny and asked a court to find a long-dead attorney guilty of tax evasion.
The trial of a dozen demonstrators accused of rioting and attacking police at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration ground on. Maria Alyokhina, a punk rocker sent to a labor camp for two years for a singing protest in Moscow's main cathedral, lost an appeal. An appeal filed on behalf of the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been in prison for nearly 10 years, was rejected.
Leonid Razvozzhayev, an opposition organizer who was kidnapped and returned to Moscow after seeking asylum in Ukraine, was given permission to get married in jail — perhaps because he is not expected to get out soon. He faces 10 years in prison if convicted of planning riots.