The first hearing in the “extremism” case against the political network of Alexei Navalny has been postponed by a Russian court on Monday. The proceedings are part of a campaign to outlaw President Vladimir Putin’s primary opposition. 

The lower house will begin debating the bill which will ban members of “extremist” organisations from being elected as lawmakers. 

The case is related to the crackdown on Putin’s critic and his supporters after Navalny barely made it through a poisoning last summer. 

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Lawyers representing Navalny’s network informed that the proceedings have been postponed until June 9. They are a team of 29 lawyers who specialise in freedom of speech and treason cases. 

They further informed that on Monday, proceedings were held behind doors. 

According to the Kommersant business, the local daily cited a source saying the secrecy was because some of the cases files contained personal information of police involved in dispersing opposition protests. 

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Key Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said on Twitter that the case material was being kept a secret so that, “nobody could see the absurdity of what was happening”.

In April, the prosecutors had requested that Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and the regional network be designated as an “extremist” organisation on grounds of plotting a Western-backed uprising. 

Such a ruling would put Navalny and his supporters on par with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group which could be used to threaten them with long prison terms. 

Navalny set up the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2011 has published numerous investigations into the lavish lifestyle of the Russian elites. 

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His organisation largely depends on donations from supporters. 

In the presidential elections of 2018, he was not allowed to run against Putin. Now, according to analysts, Kremlin will not be taking any chances ahead of the parliamentary elections this September. 

However, there has been growing unrest with Putin’s two-decade rule and the exacerbated economic state of the country due to the poor handling of the pandemic has worsened the ‘public fatigue’.

Navalny’s Instagram account recently posted, “Our country is sliding into darkness. But those who are pushing the country backwards are historically doomed.”