A Russian court last week convicted Alexei Navalny, the face of the opposition movement in the country, on charges of embezzlement. The ruling is consistent with the repressive atmosphere that has settled over politics in Russia. But the fact that the government felt the need to silence the opposition leader speaks volumes about the insecurities that dominate calculations in the Kremlin.
Navalny has ridden a tide of anger at corruption to a position of prominence among reformist forces in Russia. He organized mass protests in 2011 and 2012 against vote rigging in parliamentary polls, which prepared him for a run as mayor of Moscow. The campaign failed, but he did win nearly 30 percent of the vote, allowing him to come in second.
That effort earned him the ire of the Kremlin. He was tried and found guilty of embezzlement — the charges were generally considered part of a smear campaign to sideline a formidable opposition voice — in 2013 and put under house arrest. The European Court of Human Rights reviewed the verdict and concluded last year that the trial was unfair, throwing out the sentence and ordering Russia to pay him $67,000 in compensation.