September.
After a dramatic struggle, Ms Sobol was forced from her taxi into a blue unmarked van, and whisked away.
Mr Navalny himself remains in detention.
Lyubov Sobol is arrested: ‘I have exhausted
every legal avenue,’ she told The Independent
(AFP/Getty)Speaking with The Independent a few minutes before her arrest, Ms Sobol said she anticipated it would only
be a matter of time before she too was detained. “I understand my stance will end in jail,” she said. “And I
understand the consequences of my hunger strike.”
The opposition politician has lost over 8kg since starting her protest last month. She was clearly weak when
The Independent spoke with her, and required support to walk any serious distance. But she said she was
ready to go to the end, and claimed she would only stop when authorities opened up the elections to
opposition candidates.
“I have exhausted every legal avenue,” she said. “I have chosen this radical route because Putin doesn’t like
hunger strikes. We saw this with Oleh Sentsov,” she said, referring to the Ukrainian film director held in a
Siberian prison on disputed terrorism charges.
Ms Sobol said she had not yet been arrested only on account of her five-year-old daughter. Russian law
forbids administrative arrest of anyone with dependent minors. It seems likely that Ms Sobol will instead
now be presented with criminal charges.
A demonstrator is detained by riot police in
Pushkinskaya Square (AFP/Getty)On Friday, local media reported that Russian authorities were opening a criminal case into supposed money
laundering and tax evasion by Mr Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Both Mr Navalny and Ms Sobol,
who is a lawyer with the Foundation, reject the allegations, and describe the case as politically motivated.