On the eve of Russia's presidential election, activists supporting would-be anti-war presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin faced pressure as judges handed out sentences for minor offenses and police searched their homes.
A court in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East on March 14 sentenced three volunteers of Nadezhdin's election campaign to several days in jail.
The court handed six days in jail to Anastasia Konkova on charges of minor hooliganism and propagation of Nazi symbols, Nadezhdin's team in Vladivostok said.
The charges stemmed from messages on Konkova's Telegram account that might have appeared after her account was hacked, according to the team.
Another volunteer, Vladislav Spirenkov, was jailed for six days for using an anime symbol online that contained "an unacceptable symbol." It is not clear what kind of symbol that was.
A third member of Nadezhdin's team, Daniil Laptev, received five-day jail term on unspecified charges, his colleagues said.
A day earlier, the court sentenced the head of Nadezhdin's team in Vladivostok, Igor Krasnov, to six days in jail for "propagating extremist LGBT."
SEE ALSO: Head Of Would-Be Russian Presidential Candidate's Team In Vladivostok JailedIn the last several days, police in several cities of the southwestern region of Stavropol have searched the homes of volunteers who collected the signatures of Nadezhdin's supporters.
Police in the Perm region on March 14 searched the homes of lawyer Artyom Faizullin, activists Yelena Guseva and Irina Lyashchenko, and political observer and former coordinator of the Golos movement Vitaly Kovin. The reasons for the searches are unknown.
Nadezhdin announced earlier that his team would organize exit polls during the presidential election scheduled for March 15-17 in several towns and cities, including the city of Stavropol.
Nadezhdin is the only Russian politician who openly criticized Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine as he attempted to register his candidacy. He was rejected by election officials over "violations of the signature collection procedure."
His appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected.