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Demonstrators Protest Russian Pension Reform Plans

by VOA News

   Supporters of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny are staging
   protests across Russia Sunday over plans to increase the nation's
   pension age, as Russians go to the polls for regional elections.

   Navalny was scheduled to appear at the demonstration in Moscow Sunday,
   but last month he was convicted of breaking protests laws and was
   jailed for for 30 days. His detention, Navalny says, was designed to
   wreck his plans for the nationwide rallies against raising the age when
   workers can start receiving their pensions.

   Navalny's supporters, however, are going forward with the plans for the
   protests. The demonstrations have not been sanctioned by the
   government, raising the possibility that the protesters could be
   arrested.

   "For 18 years, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his government
   have stolen from the budget and squandered it on meaningless projects.
   Now the money's run out and we have to steal from pensioners to make
   ends meet," Navalny's supporters wrote on social media.

   Navalny has served a number of weekslong jail terms in recent years for
   organizing protests.

   Navalny, who also organized massive street protests to coincide with
   Putin's 2012 re-election, was barred from the presidential ballot in
   March because of a conviction on financial crimes, charges he contends
   were fabricated.