Russia court rejects plea to imprison opposition activist Navalny News
Russia court rejects plea to imprison opposition activist Navalny

[JURIST] A Moscow court on Wednesday declined authorities’ request to convert opposition activist Aleksei Navalny’s [personal website, in Russian; JURIST news archive] suspended sentence into a prison term. Navalny is a Russian opposition activist and blogger who was given a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence after being convicted in December of fraud. Navalny is believed to have been one of the main actors behind the street protests in Moscow in 2011-12. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service—supported by prosecutors—asked the court to send Navalny to jail for his disturbing the public order. The court, however, decided to extend Navalny’s suspended sentence for three months, rather than replace the sentence with a prison term.

The Navalny brothers were charged [RAPSI report] with embezzling approximately 30 million rubles (USD $518,000) from cosmetics company Yves Rocher Vostok [corporate website] and the Multidisciplinary Processing Company (MPC) by a fraud scheme between 2008 and 2012. A spokesperson for the EU issued a statement [text] claiming that Navalny’s trial was politically motivated.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Fyodor Dostoevsky sentenced to death

Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death on November 16, 1849 over his involvement in the progressive Petrashevsky Circle of intellectuals. Dostoevsky and his codefendants were scheduled to be executed on December 22 of that year, but their execution was stayed by Tsar Nicholas I after the execution ritual had been carried out. Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia instead to serve a four-year sentence. Learn more about the mock execution of Dostoevsky.

Canada executed Metis leader for treason

On November 16, 1885, the Canadian government executed Metis leader Louis Riel for high treason in the wake of the "Northwest Rebellion" that had pitted the Metis (descendants of French traders and native tribes) in what is now Saskatchewan against Canadian troops. Although Riel has lately been rehabilitated as an Indigenous francophone patriot of the Canadian West, his trial and execution remain sore points between English and French Canada.

US President Nixon signs Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act

On November 16, 1973, US President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act into law. In addition to creating an oil pipeline across the state, the Act also quashed all environmental-legal challenges regarding its construction.