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Moscow Court Orders Closure Of Key Navalny Campaign Foundation

RFE/RL January 22, 2018

A court in Moscow has ordered the closure of a foundation that has been bulwark of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's presidential campaign.

The Meshchansky District Court issued the ruling on January 22 after the Justice Ministry earlier this month filed a lawsuit with the court seeking to shutter the Fifth Season Foundation.

The ministry argued that the foundation had broken the law by providing a false address for its permanent administrative body, failing to register some of its structures, and financial misuse.

The foundation's representative, Vyacheslav Gimadi, said that the court's ruling would be appealed.

Navalny, an anticorruption crusader and vocal opponent of President Vladimir Putin, has campaigned for the March 18 election for over a year despite warnings -- confirmed by a formal decision in December -- that he would be barred from the ballot due to a criminal conviction he says was fabricated.

Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999, is seeking a new six-year term in the election.

Navalny has responded to his disqualification by calling on Russians to boycott the election, and seeking to organize nationwide protests on January 28 in support of the boycott.

Moscow authorities have denied Navalny permission to hold a march down a central Moscow street and a rally near the Kremlin, proposing a site on the outskirts of the city instead.

Navalny's campaign chief, Leonid Volkov, said in November that the Fifth Season Foundation is the legal entity that officially employs workers of Navalny's campaign offices across Russia, receives financial contributions from supporters, and concludes lease agreements and other deals on behalf of Navalny's campaign.

Kremlin critics contend that most of the other candidates are being used as window-dressing in an election that Putin is certain to win in Russia's tightly controlled political environment.

Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny -court-closes-foundation/28989397.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.