Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny said on his blog Tuesday that he has been issued a summons by the anti-extremism department of the police.
Navalny said the entire staff of RosPil — an organization he founded to track corruption linked to state tenders — has been summoned as well.
Government opponents regularly allege that extremism charges are used to put pressure on human rights activists or to discourage actions not considered desirable by the authorities.
The blogger and opposition leader said the agency refused to explain the reason for the summons to his lawyer, which he said means that "of course we are absolutely not going."
He said: "From the content of the strange letters, we see no legal reason to be distracted from the work that many thousands pay us to carry out," providing a link to a page showing an up-to-the-minute list of contributions to the organization.
In his post, Navalny directed the anti-extremism department's attention to what he says they should be investigating — linking to a blog post detailing government plans to purchase 380 cars for 4 billion rubles ($135 million), or 10 million rubles per car. The cars would then be given away to winners of an unspecified contest after three years.
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