Russian police detained more than 900 people at protests in favour of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was sent to jail by a court on Tuesday for almost three years, the OVD-Info protest monitoring group said.
Police detained Navalny's supporters early on Tuesday as they tried to gather near the court to support him during the ruling. After the ruling, Navalny's allies called on his supporters to protest in the centre of Moscow.
The Moscow court handed Navalny a three-and-a-half-year sentence, but his lawyer said the anti-corruption blogger would actually serve two years and eight months in jail because of time already spent under house arrest.
His lawyers said they would appeal. The United States, Britain, Germany and the EU urged Moscow to immediately free Navalny.
The Kremlin critic was arrested at the Russian border on Jan. 17 after returning from Germany where he had been recovering from being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the ruling on Navalny as "pure cowardice" and said in a tweet it failed to meet "the most basic standards of justice", adding Navalny must be released immediately.
"The UK calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Alexey Navalny and all of the peaceful protesters and journalists arrested over the last two weeks," foreign minister Dominic Raab said in a separate statement.
"Today’s perverse ruling, targeting the victim of a poisoning rather than those responsible, shows Russia is failing to meet the most basic commitments expected of any responsible member of the international community," Raab added.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)
