European Court: Russia Arrested Navalny For Political Reasons

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that Russian authorities' repeated arrests of opposition leader and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny have been politically motivated. According to the decision announced on November 15, Russia violated the European Convention on Human Rights of which it is a signatory -- mainly its Article 18 stating that a citizen's rights should never be restricted for other than legal purposes.