Watchdog

ASTANA -- Police in Kazakhstan have detained an activist after he staged a protest to express solidarity with the embattled Adam Bol (Be a Human) magazine.

Meiram Duisenov unfolded a poster reading "Adam Bol! in front of presidential palace in Astana on February 6.

Police stopped Duisenov from putting the poster into a mailbox located next to the building and took him away.

In December, a court in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, shut down Adam Bol, saying it was "propagating war."

That ruling came weeks after the magazine published an interview with opposition activist Aidos Sadyqov, who lives in exile in Ukraine.

In the interview, Sadyqov criticized Russia for its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

The magazine’s chief editor, Gulzhan Erghalieva, ended an 18-day hunger strike on February 5.

Russian investigators have searched the home of a top associate of Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny.

Navalny said on his webpage that law enforcement officers searched the Moscow apartment of Roman Rubanov, the director of his Anti-Corruption Foundation, and the homes of Rubanov's parents and sister outside the city on February 6.

He said he believed the searches were intended to put pressure on the anticorruption foundation, which has conducted high-profile investigations targeting powerful allies of President Vladimir Putin, and to undermine plans for an antigovernment protest on March 1.

Rubanov's lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, told reporters that police confiscated electronic information storage devices from his client's apartment.

He said the authorities informed him the search was conducted in connection with an artwork found last year in Navalny's apartment, which investigators claim was stolen.

Badamshin said Rubanov is being treated as considered a witness in the case, one of several targeting Navalny.

Navalny is under house arrest and has been convicted of large-scale theft in two trials he says were politically motivated.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS