Professional Repercussions Continue for Pro-Navalny Protesters

Russians protesting the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny (Wikimedia Commons).

Management at a hospital in Moscow fired employee Saidanvar Sulaimonov on February 15 for tweeting a picture in support of national demonstrations protesting the jailing of leading Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. 

The latest Navalny protests took place on February 14. Their theme, “love is stronger than fear,” encouraged participants to show solidarity with Navalny not by gathering but by posting pictures of themselves holding a flashlight. The firing of Sulaimanov represents another example of the mounting professional repercussions faced by those caught attending the protests.

In an interview with Meduza, Sulaimonov stated that he tweeted the photo on the day of the protest around 6 pm. Within fifteen minutes of posting, the head nurse requested to speak with him. He continued working the night shift until around 8 am when senior management notified him of his dismissal.

“There is repression in this country. You get fired for posting a photo with a flashlight, fine, but I heard how students were expelled from university for simply wanting to go to the protests. They didn’t even go, they just wanted to, and were expelled anyways,” Sulaimanov said. “Firing for political reasons is unacceptable and complete absurdity. And what happened to me is not the only case. Regrettably, every day we face this chaos.”

The Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s principal security agency, attempted to poison Navalny last September. He recovered in Berlin and returned in January to Russia, where he was immediately arrested. Since his return and arrest, protests have erupted across the country. 

Sulaimanov joins a long list of recent politically motivated firings in Russia, including a senior lecturer at the Moscow Institute of Theatrical Art, a high school teacher, and a major in the Kursk police department. 

There has also been internal pressure at companies discouraging workers from protesting. McKinsey, a U.S.-based consulting firm criticized for its close ties to the Kremlin, came under fire after the managing partner of their Russia office emailed employees the Friday before the first round of protests banning them from engaging in political activity. It later put out a statement retracting those comments.

The escalating professional repercussions for attending protests are part of a larger Kremlin crackdown on the pro-Navalny movement. Authorities have detained more than eleven thousand people connected to the demonstrations over the last month, overwhelming prisons across the country. 

“Russia’s political system rests more and more on repression,” said Vladimir Gelman, a professor at the European University in St.Petersburg.“The purpose of these repressions isn’t just to punish those opposing the regime, like Navalny and the members of his team, but also to signal to the general public that they’ll have problems too, if they misbehave.”