MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court on Friday sentenced opposition activist Andrei Pivovarov to 14 days in jail after finding him guilty of breaking protest legislation.
The activist from Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia was detained over an incident in Moscow on July 15 in which he had sought to gather signatures to petition against sweeping constitutional reforms passed this summer.
He denied the charge. After the verdict, he accused Russia’s authorities of jailing him in order to sideline him ahead of local elections due to take place across the country on Sept. 13.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth and Maria Vasilyeva; editing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber)
