The Daily Beast reports: On Monday morning hundreds of Russians across the country awaited their hearings in court. After the biggest protests in years against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the country was watching a massive crackdown. Some called it “Putin’s revenge.”

Mass detentions, fines, or incarceration were the Kremlin’s response to the series of anti-corruption demonstrations which had rolled through 82 Russian cities on Sunday.

In Moscow alone, Aleksei Navalny, the organizer of the nation-wide protest movement, was quickly sentenced to 15 days behind bars, but there were 1,300 other detainees in the Russian capital as well, including 46 teenagers. Many people were injured by club-swinging police.

Lawyers and volunteers of a Moscow NGO, or nongovernmental organization, Russia Behind Bars, spent Sunday night and all of Monday providing free legal assistance for detainees of all ages, including many teenagers and their parents. [Continue reading…]