Russia should free all peaceful demonstrators who have taken to the streets to support dissident Alexei Navalny, the UN Human Rights Office demanded in Geneva.
“We urge the authorities in Russia to immediately release all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression yesterday and over the past few weeks of protests across the country,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.
Shamdasani said her office is “deeply dismayed” that Navalny was sentenced to several years in prison on Tuesday for allegedly violating probation under a 2014 embezzlement sentence.
The European Court of Human Rights has found the 2014 sentence to be “arbitrary, unfair and manifestly unreasonable,” she added.
