Moscow City Court is now hearing Alexei #Navalny's case and looking at switching a suspended sentence with a real one. Protestors are arriving to the court and being arrested. Live 🧵
#Navalny was just taken into the Moscow City Court hall
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356514055310233602
Mass arrests began in front of the court.
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356513722383167490
Lots of police in front, including horseback police 
Police vans are by the metro station next to the courts. People arriving at the station are being arrested right away.
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356511161529884672
These people are risking spending the next days in the buses as the special detention centers in Moscow are at full capacity. Vans are being sent to a village where people are held inside vans with no food, water, restrooms, heat, standing up for more than 9 hours.
Same situation in St.Petersburg. novayagazeta.ru/news/2021/02/0…
Still, more people are being arrested just now in Moscow by the court
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356515900183228416
Inside the court, police: "Press, turn off the broadcasting! Who is broadcasting from the audience? - the bailiff is angry. "It's me!" says Navalny from the glass cage.
https://twitter.com/mediazzzona/status/1356516733834698753
Cars with diplomatic numbers (Switzerland, Austria and Bulgaria) arrived at the court. zona.media/online/2021/02…
Arrests continue
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356518250738237440
Judge Natalia Repnikova enters the hall. She opens the court session, announcing that the court will consider a suggestion to cancel the suspended sentence against Navalny.
Police are detaining everyone standing next to bus stops next to the metro station by the court
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/1356518476760948740
Riot police by the metro station. Putin is really afraid.
In court: When asked about his place of residence, Navalny answers “SIZO No. 1” (detention center); the judge asks to say where he lived before.
Meanwhile, arrests in front of the courthouse continue.
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/1356519595453140998
So, in a nutshell, if you are not sure what's happening: The prosecutor's office supported The Federal Penitentiary Service's petition to replace the suspended sentence with a real one. Navalny's lawyers demand to reject the petition.
Navalny's lawyer now explains that Navalny completed his treatment in Germany on Jan 15 and arrived in Russia on Jan 17. If Navalny had not been detained at the airport, he would checked-in the next morning with police as required. He is charged with violating check-in rules.
Lawyer: Navalny did not show up for registration, as he was outside the Moscow region, namely in a clinic in Germany. The lawyer shows a certificate which says that Navalny had a treatment from August 22 to September 23, suffered severe poisoning with organophosphorus compounds
The judge calls for-10 minute break
Outside of the court, more than 50 people arrested, at least 4 journalists. Police vans are heading to police stations now.
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356521520588275712
More background: In 2014, Alexey Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years probation, and his brother, Oleg Navalny, was sentenced to 3.5 years in a general regime colony for "embezzlement." In 2017, the European Human Rights Court ruled that the verdict was arbitrary and unfounded...
...but refused to consider the case politically motivated. In its subsequent decision in 2019, the ECHR recognized Navalny's house arrest as politically motivated.
Before the break, Navalny's lawyer pointed out that ECHR decision in the Yves Rocher case was not implemented. Navalny was paid compensation, but the sentence was not canceled. The judge asked 10 min to look at the documents.
Navalny recently has recovered from coma, poisoning, and spent the last two weeks in solitary confinement. meduza.io/live/2021/02/0…
The court is now in session.
The judge promises that a decision on whether Navalny will be replaced by a suspended sentence with a real one will be made today.
A young woman with a poster in support of Navalny is being arrested: for just standing there. Video.
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356528369047896064
The representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service speaks about the verdict in the Yves Rocher case. He says that Navalny committed numerous violations of the probationary period & committed more than 50 violations of the [probationary period] and public order
Violations include failure to appear for check-in during the time when Navalny was undergoing treatments in Berlin after poisoning (Navalny was in a coma.)
99 supporters are arrested at this point in Moscow
https://twitter.com/mediazzzona/status/1356530028381675522
💥💥💥A representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service asks to cancel the suspended sentence and carry out the punishment of 3 years 6 months in prison in a general regime colony.
Outside the court zona.media/online/2021/02…
(Pause--no messages from any of the outlets I am following. It could be the Internet, it could be journalists arrested; I hope they are just waiting to hear from inside the court.) Riot police keeps arresting people outside.
An update: The representative of the FSIN reads the procedure for canceling the suspended sentence in case of systematic violations: Navalny failed to check-in 7 times and "attempted to escape," so the FSIN asks to replace the suspended sentence with a real term.
Arrests outside of the court continue...
https://twitter.com/MBKhMedia/status/1356535154064375809
"Criminal correctional punishment is aimed at correcting the convicted person and preventing new crimes..."Navalny didn't change his "attitude towards the verdict of the court" and didn't "take the path of correction" nor "draw the proper conclusions"
At this point, the hearing is going back and forth and around the same subject (Why didn't Navalny arrive at check-ins? He disappeared and was on the Wanted list. (Except for the whole world knew where he was... and then he volunteered to come back.)
Here is live reporting in English by excellent @MoscowTimes. I might need to crash now. Almost 2 am here. Follow this article or their tweeter account. I will be back in a few hours to sum it up. Still hopeful... but it doesn't look promising. themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/02/as-…
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