Convicted Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has arrived in Moscow after being released on bail while he appeals his conviction on embezzlement charges. Addressing a crowd of supporters who were waiting to greet him at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky train station, Navalny thanked them and credited supporters with helping gain his release from detention in Kirov so he could campaign for mayor of Russia’s capital. Navalny said his freedom was a sign of the growing power of Russia’s people. “We are a huge, powerful force and I am glad you are starting to recognize your power,” he said. The opposition leader and anticorruption blogger said the Russian authorities were starting to sense the power of the country’s people as well, and it made them nervous. “In court, their [officials’] hands were trembling and here they are trembling because in the courtroom there is no power, no authority but here [in the crowd] there is strength, here there is power,” he said. “We here are the power!”
Navalny spoke of the upcoming campaign for Moscow mayor but he also mentioned that the struggle that helped free him, albeit temporarily, from detention needed to continue until other “political prisoners” were also free. “The last thing I want to say is there is a big and difficult election campaign, seven weeks of ceaseless work. And this is only the beginning,” he said.
“Let’s not go out only one time to force the release of political prisoners. People from Bolotnaya [Square] are sitting in jail, [Maria] Alyokhina and [Nadezhda] Tolokonnikova [of Pussy Riot] are sitting in jail, [former oil tycoon Mikhail] Khodorkovsky and [his business partner Platon] Lebedev are in jail. We need to get them all freed. Let’s fight for political power in our country right now!”
Full Article: Navalny Arrives In Moscow, Vows To Win Mayoral Election.