RUSSIALINK: “Navalny staffs to continue to operate as independent sociopolitical movements” – Interfax

File Photo of Alexei Navalny Marching on Street with Others in Background; adapted from image at commons.wikimedia.org with credit to Evgeny Feldman, subject to Creative Commons license; original image at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FEV_1795_(cropped1).jpg, with license information at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en and creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

MOSCOW. April 29 (Interfax) – Most regional team offices of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, whose activity has been suspended, will continue to operate as independent sociopolitical movements, Navalny associate Leonid Volkov said.

“Some regional staffs will be shut down, but the majority will continue to work as independent regional sociopolitical movements,” Volkov said on YouTube on Thursday.

These movements will not be receiving financing or assistance, Volkov said. “We are no longer able to finance them, we cannot help them with design or IT solutions, and we will not set tasks for them,” he said.

The staffs are gone, but there are regional politicians and independent organizations, and they will carry out research, will participate in elections and public campaigns, and will organize rallies, Volkov said.

Navalny’s supporters said earlier that his regional team offices would suspend their activity and shut down their social media accounts in connection with an order from the Moscow prosecution service.

On April 26, the prosecution service suspended the activity of Navalny’s regional headquarters and asked the Moscow City Court to suspend the activity of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Citizens’ Rights Protection Foundation (FBK and FZPG, both listed as foreign agents) until a motion for their ban was processed.

The Moscow prosecution service said that these organizations were “creating the conditions for social and sociopolitical destabilization” and should be pronounced extremist for that reason.

Meanwhile, the FBK legal affairs service published the Moscow prosecutor’s resolution of April 26, 2021, which said that the activity of the FBK and Navalny’s staffs would be suspended until the Moscow City Court processed the relevant motion.

[article also appeared at interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/71697/]

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