Nicaragua’s Government is financing the repression of its opponents through illegal misuse of public funds and targeting exiles through a transnational surveillance and intelligence network, the UN Group of Independent Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned in its latest report on Tuesday.
Author: tio
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“Vinay Prasad Loves President Trump”. That, Plus 12 Other Thoughts on the End of Dr. Vinay Prasad’s Sabbatical From UCSF
The bottom line is this: when given the opportunity to prove his real-world prowess, Dr. Vinay Prasad failed.
The post “Vinay Prasad Loves President Trump”. That, Plus 12 Other Thoughts on the End of Dr. Vinay Prasad’s Sabbatical From UCSF first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.
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From Wagner to GRU, Russian Military Men Are Manning Moscow’s Shadow Fleet
On December 27, 2025, the sanctioned oil tanker Kira K was docked in the Russian port of Ust-Luga, deep within the eastern reaches of the Gulf of Finland. It was preparing to haul 734,000 barrels of crude oil belonging to Lukoil, the blacklisted Russian energy giant, out to the global market.
According to the ship’s crew list, the vessel was manned by a mix of sailors from Myanmar, China, and Bangladesh.
But there were two other men on board as well. The tanker’s crew manifest lists Russian citizens Denis Enin and Aleksandr Kamenev as “supernumeraries” — a term for personnel who fall outside the standard operating crew.
In the data fields detailing each crew member’s seafarer diplomas and qualifications, only two letters appear next to the Russian names: NA. Not available.
That is because these men are not your normal sailors.
Kamenev, 45, and Enin, 48, are both veterans of the Wagner Group, the notorious Russian mercenary outfit that fought in conflicts around the world on Moscow’s behalf for nearly a decade until 2023.
Kamenev was in Syria and Russian-occupied Donetsk during the height of Wagner’s operations there, leaked border crossing data shows. Enin, for his part, has listed his registered address as that of a military unit in southern Russia.
The two men’s presence on the Kira K is not incidental. A joint investigation by Delfi, Helsingin Sanomat, iStories, and OCCRP has identified a systematic pattern of militarizing Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, the term used to describe the hundreds of aging and opaquely owned vessels that Moscow uses to circumvent Western sanctions on its oil.
By analyzing crew lists from sanctioned tankers across 20 journeys, reporters found that vessels departing Russia’s Baltic Sea ports now regularly carry two-man teams with military backgrounds.
Of the 17 Russian men aboard these ships who lacked maritime credentials, 13 were found to have links to the Wagner Group or state security organizations such as Russia’s military spy service, the GRU. Reporters established these connections through an array of leaked Russian databases, a registry of Wagner mercenaries from 2021, and information gathered from European intelligence agencies and open sources.
These extra crewmen or “technicians,” as they are sometimes referred to, started appearing on vessels after July 2025, according to the crew lists obtained by reporters. They are notably absent from a limited sample of crew manifests for vessels traveling Black Sea or Pacific routes during the same period, suggesting a targeted presence in the Baltic Sea.
The findings add new evidence to warnings from Western intelligence agencies, first reported by CNN late last year, that Russians with security backgrounds were boarding Moscow’s shadow fleet tankers and engaging in spying near European shores. The crew manifests indicate the scale and systematic nature of the phenomenon, and provided names and other identifiers that allowed reporters to confirm the men’s military pasts.
Intelligence sources from multiple European countries told reporters that these so-called “vessel protection teams” have been deployed to deter authorities from Baltic Sea nations from boarding, inspecting, or potentially seizing the ships that form an economic lifeline for Moscow.
European authorities generally cannot stop such vessels solely for being sanctioned. But they have in the past year halted tankers belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet on a handful of occasions, often for flying a false flag or for being suspected of damaging undersea cables.
But with battle-hardened veterans on board, any such intervention could risk facing an armed resistance.
“The goal of this activity is to protect the Russian Federation’s revenue base from potential threats, be it [Ukraine-organized] sabotage” or other interference from the West, the head of Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, told Delfi.
“Placing ship protecting crews on these ships shows that the goods moved by the shadow fleet and the revenue derived from them are important to Russia,” he added.
Russia relies heavily on the Baltic route to transport oil that generates millions in revenue for the state’s war chest on a daily basis. According to the Kyiv School of Economics, the country exports roughly 40 percent of its crude oil specifically through the Baltic Sea.
But some analysts believe the special crew members appearing on the Baltic route have been deployed to do more than secure Russia’s economic interests.
Glen Grant, a defense advisor and a former U.K. defense attaché to Estonia and Latvia, noted that by sailing through the Baltic unimpeded, these former military men are also able to gather valuable information, including how Western authorities engage with the sanctioned tankers.
“Collectively that gives them a complete idea of our strength, resolve, philosophy and our military capability,” he said. “The fact that they’re carrying oil and that they get money in [for Russia] as well is a bonus.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Lukoil, and the company managing the Kira K did not respond to questions sent by reporters. When reached on Telegram, Enin, one of the Russians listed as part of the Kira K’s crew, denied having been aboard the ship and did not answer further questions. His compatriot Kamenev did not respond to questions sent to his email.
A Paratrooper and an Intelligence Officer
The Russian crewmen identified by reporters are not just affiliated with the Wagner group, which is accused by the EU of carrying out grave rights abuses everywhere from Ukraine to Syria and the Central African Republic. (The organization was effectively disbanded after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a failed rebellion in June 2023, and then died in a plane crash two months later).
The shadow fleet crews also include Russians from a range of other military backgrounds, such as Aleksandr Malakhov, a “supernumerary” who rode on the Kira K in October 2025.
The 50-year-old is a veteran of the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade, a special forces unit under the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU, a European intelligence source confirmed to reporters. (Leaked data also shows Malakhov’s registered address was listed as the Spetsnaz unit in southern Russia’s Rostov Oblast). He did not respond to questions sent to his email address.
In August 2025, the Kira K carried another Russian duo through the Gulf of Finland: 50-year-old Dmitry Frolov and 38-year-old Juri Tsvetkov. Reporters found these two men have been travel companions before. In both 2022 and 2023, the pair flew together on Russian Air Force aircraft, according to leaked Russian border crossing data.
When contacted on Telegram, Frolov denied having been at sea. After reporters said they possessed proof he was present on the Kira K, he wrote: “Forget it, don’t write. Otherwise, I’ll turn [you] in to the FSB.” His shipmate Tsvetkov did not respond to questions sent to his email address.
Another sanctioned tanker known as the Lebre, meanwhile, has carried “technicians” who worked for the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Defense of the Russia-backed breakaway territory of Transnistria, according to information provided by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, which said it was in possession of the men’s employment records.
When reached for comment, the crewman linked to Russia’s defense ministry denied ever having been employed there, and said he had worked on the tanker as a cook. He confirmed that the other Russian on board who was also listed as a technician had, however, served as a guard. That crewman did not respond to requests to comment.
The ship’s manager, Anchor Elite Shipmanagement, said it was “not in a position to confirm the allegations presented” about the men, but that their presence on the ship was “in no way connected with military or private military activities,” and they were engaged solely in “galley duties” and “deck-related work.”
Another shadow fleet vessel, which made headlines when it was seized by French authorities in September 2025, has also carried a paratrooper serving in the Russian Army, according to an intelligence officer in the Baltic Sea region, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of information provided.
Reporters found that a Russian with the same name and date of birth, Stanislav Babichev, has a profile on a social media platform that lists a military training school — 332 Airborne Forces Warrant Officer School — as his education. He did not respond to questions sent to his email address.
An analyst with the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO) said that these Russian security teams are likely tasked with preventing the rest of their ship’s crew from complying with foreign authorities.
“The guards are likely on board to ensure that other Baltic Sea countries do not take control of these ships too easily,” the analyst told Helsingin Sanomat on the condition of anonymity.
They also may act as “liaisons” for those who hired them, the analyst added. “It can be assumed that if, for example, Russian military forces and naval vessels are operating in the same area and escorting these ships, then the task of these men may be to facilitate communication.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service told reporters these men are typically hired by the Russian private security companies RSB Group and Moran Security Group.
RSB Group, whose website says it has “protected tens of merchant and scientific Russian and foreign vessels,” employs former Russian intelligence officers and other combatants, and has trained units for the war in Ukraine, according to EU and U.S sanctions notices. Moran Security, which also offers a variety of maritime protection services on its website, has also been sanctioned by the U.S. for providing services to Russian state enterprises.
The companies did not respond to requests to comment.
Raising the Stakes
The deployment of these covert security agents on commercial vessels comes amid a marked increase in Russia’s direct military presence in the Baltic.
Last May, the Estonian Navy escorted the EU-sanctioned oil tanker Jaguar out of Estonian economic waters after it was found to be sailing without a valid flag.
Russia responded by sending a fighter jet that violated Estonian airspace.
“Russia sees the shadow fleet as a very important economic lever,” said Estonian Navy Commander Ivo Värk, adding Russia’s naval presence in the Baltic has quadrupled since 2022.
“For them, it is a matter of high national interest. Russia is prepared to protect this by all means.”
A high-ranking European intelligence officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the presence of security officials on the ships raises the stakes of any efforts to intervene in Russia’s oil trade.
“Two potentially armed individuals certainly changes [our] risk calculus when we must decide whether to stop or seize the tanker. Russia believes this makes NATO member states along the Baltic Sea more cautious,” the official said.
For Sean Wiswesser, a former CIA senior operations officer with a specialization in the Russian intelligence services and military, the trend suggests Moscow is also using its shadow fleet vessels as platforms for “sabotage” and “other intelligence operations, like potentially deploying drones.”
“It’s definitely not just about protecting Russia’s oil,” he said. “Nowhere else in the world have there been as many cable cuts, and in a short time, as there have been in the past two years in the Baltic Sea.”
Additional reporting by Kaur Maran, Greete Palgi, Marta Vunš (Delfi).
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March 15 is the deadline to apply for LibreLocal funding
If you want funding for your meetup, apply before it’s too late!
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The SAFE Act is an Imperfect Vehicle for Real Section 702 Reform
The SAFE act, introduced by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), is the first of many likely proposals we will see to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008—and while imperfect, it does propose a litany of real and much-needed reforms of Big Brother’s favorite surveillance authority.
The irresponsible 2024 reauthorization of the secretive mass surveillance authority Section 702 not only gave the government two more years of unconstitutional surveillance powers, it also made the policy much worse. But, now people who value privacy and the rule of law get another bite at the apple. With expiration for Section 702 looming in April 2026, we are starting to see the emergence of proposals for how to reauthorize the surveillance authority—including calls from inside the White House for a clean reauthorization that would keep the policy unchanged. EFF has always had a consistent policy: Section 702 should not be reauthorized absent major reforms that will keep this tactic of foreign surveillance from being used as a tool of mass domestic espionage.
What is Section 702?
Section 702 was intended to modernize foreign surveillance of the internet for national security purposes. It allows collection of foreign intelligence from non-Americans located outside the United States by requiring U.S.-based companies that handle online communications to hand over data to the government. As the law is written, the intelligence community (IC) cannot use Section 702 programs to target Americans, who are protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. But the law gives the intelligence community space to target foreign intelligence in ways that inherently and intentionally sweep in Americans’ communications.
We live in an increasingly globalized world where people are constantly in communication with people overseas. That means, while targeting foreigners outside the U.S. for “foreign intelligence Information” the IC routinely acquires the American side of those communications without a probable cause warrant. The collection of all that data from U.S telecommunications and internet providers results in the “incidental” capture of conversations involving a huge number of people in the United States.
But, this backdoor access to U.S. persons’ data isn’t “incidental.” Section 702 has become a routine part of the FBI’s law enforcement mission. In fact, the IC’s latest Annual Statistical Transparency Report documents the many ways the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uses Section 702 to spy on Americans without a warrant. The IC lobbied for Section 702 as a tool for national security outside the borders of the U.S., but it is apparent that the FBI uses it to conduct domestic, warrantless surveillance on Americans. In 2021 alone, the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of US person’s 702 data.
The Good
Let’s start with the good things that this bill does. These are reforms EFF has been seeking for a long time and their implementation would mean a big improvement in the status quo of national security law.
First, the bill would partially close the loophole that allows the FBI and domestic law enforcement to dig through 702-collected data’s “incidental” collection of the U.S. side of communications. The FBI currently operates with a “finders keeper” mentality, meaning that because the data is pre-collected by another agency, the FBI believes it can operate with almost no constraints on using it for other purposes. The SAFE act would require a warrant before the FBI looked at the content of these collected communications. As we will get to later, this reform does not go nearly far enough because they can query to see what data on a person exists before getting a warrant, but it is certainly an improvement on the current system.
Second, the bill addresses the age-old problem of parallel construction. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, parallel construction is a method by which intelligence agencies or domestic law enforcement find out a piece of information about a subject through secret, even illegal or unconstitutional methods. Uninterested in revealing these methods, officers hide what actually happened by publicly offering an alternative route they could have used to find that information. So, for instance, if police want to hide the fact that they knew about a specific email because it was intercepted under the authority of Section 702, they might use another method, like a warranted request to a service provider, to create a more publicly-acceptable path to that information. To deal with this problem, the SAFE Act mandates that when the government seeks to use Section 702 evidence in court, it must disclosure the source of this evidence “without regard to any claim that the information or evidence…would inevitably have been discovered, or was subsequently reobtained through other means.”
Next, the bill proposes a policy that EFF and other groups have nonetheless been trying to get through Congress for over five years: ending the data broker loophole. As the system currently stands, data brokers who buy and sell your personal data collected from smartphone applications, among other sources, are able to sell that sensitive information, including a phone’s geolocation, to the law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That means that with a bit of money, police can buy the data (or buy access to services that purchase and map the data) that they would otherwise need a warrant to get. A bill that would close this loophole, the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act passed through the House in 2024 but has yet to be voted on by the Senate. In the meantime, states have taken it upon themselves to close this loophole with Montana being the first state to pass similar legislation in May 2025. The SAFE Act proposes to partially fix the loophole at least as far as intelligence agencies are concerned. This fix could not come soon enough—especially since the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has signaled their willingness to create one big, streamlined, digital marketplace where the government can buy data from data brokers.
Another positive thing about the SAFE Act is that it creates an official statutory end to surveillance power that the government allowed to expire in 2020. In its heyday, the intelligence community used Section 215 of the Patriot Act to justify the mass collection of communication records like metadata from phone calls. Although this legal authority has lapsed, it has always been our fear that it will not sit dormant forever and could be reauthorized at any time. This new bill says that its dormant powers shall “cease to be in effect” within 180 of the SAFE Act being enacted.
What Needs to Change
The SAFE Act also attempts to clarify very important language that gauges the scope of the surveillance authority: who is obligated to turn over digital information to the U.S. government. Under Section 702, “electronic communication service providers” (ECSP) are on the hook for providing information, but the definition of that term has been in dispute and has changed over time—most recently when a FISA court opinion expanded the definition to include a category of “secret” ECSPs that have not been publicly disclosed. Unfortunately, this bill still leaves ambiguity in interpretation and an audit system without a clear directive for enforcing limitations on who is an ECSP or guaranteeing transparency.
As mentioned earlier, the SAFE Act introduces a warrant requirement for the FBI to read the contents of Americans’ communications that have been warrantlessly collected under Section 702. However, the law does not in its current form require the FBI to get a warrant before running searches identifying whether Americans have communications present in the database in the first place. Knowing this information is itself very revealing and the government should not be able to profit from circumventing the Fourth Amendment.
When Congress reauthorized Section 702 in 2014, they did so through a piece of policy called the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA). This bill made 702 worse in several ways, one of the most severe being that it expanded the legal uses for the surveillance authority to include vetting immigrants. In an era when the United States government is rounding up immigrants, including people awaiting asylum hearings, and which U.S officials are continuously threatening to withhold admission to the United States from people whose politics does not align with the current administration, RISAA sets a dangerous precedent. Although RISAA is officially expiring in April, it would be helpful for any Section 702 reauthorization bill to explicitly prohibit the use of this authority for that reason.
Finally, in the same way that the SAFE Act statutorily ends the expired Section 215 of the Patriot Act, it should also impose an explicit end to “Abouts collection” a practice of collecting digital communications, not if their from suspected people, but if their are “about” specific topics. This practice has been discontinued, but still sits on the books, just waiting to be revamped.
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Beware alleged ’60 Minutes’ advisory to Facebook users about personal data
The widely-shared Facebook post began, “Just in case you missed ’60 Minutes’: A legal spokesperson advised us to post this notice.” -
Privacy’s Defender: Launch Party in Berkeley
We’re celebrating the launch of Privacy’s Defender, a new book by EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn on Thursday, March 12—and we want you to join us! Cindy has tangled with the feds, fought for your data security, and argued before judges to protect our access to science and knowledge on the internet. In Privacy’s Defender she asks: can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online?
Join the festivities for a live conversation between Cindy Cohn and Annalee Newitz followed by a book signing with Cindy.
$20 General Admission for 1
$30 Discounted tickets for 2
$12.50 Student Ticket
All proceeds benefit EFF’s mission.Want your own copy of Privacy’s Defender?
Save $10 when you preorder the book with your ticket purchaseWHEN:
Thursday, March 12th, 2026
6:30 pm to 9:30 pmWHERE:
Ciel Creative Space
Entrance located at:
940 Parker St, Berkeley, CA 947106:30 PM Doors Open
7:15 PM Program BeginsAbout the book
Throughout her career, Cindy Cohn has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Privacy’s Defender chronicles her thirty-year battle to protect our right to digital privacy and shows just how central this right is to all our other rights, including our ability to organize and make change in the world.
Shattering the hypermasculine myth that our digital reality was solely the work of a handful of charismatic tech founders, the author weaves her own personal story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world.
Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, but also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights. Learn about the Privacy’s Defender book tour.
Parking
Street parking is available around the building.
Accessibility
The main event space is wheelchair accessible, on concrete. Lively music will be playing, and the speakers will be using a microphone, so louder volumes are expected. EFF is committed to improving accessibility for our events. If you will be attending in-person and need accommodation, or have accessibility questions prior to the event, please contact events@eff.org.
Food and Drink
Wine & Beer will be available for purchase. Cellarmaker Brewing Co., located next door to Ciel Space, will be serving food until 8:00 pm.
Questions?
Email us at events@eff.org.
About the Speakers
Cindy Cohn
Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000-2015 she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Ms. Cohn first became involved with EFF in 1993, when EFF asked her to serve as the outside lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successful First Amendment challenge to the U.S. export restrictions on cryptography.Ms. Cohn has been named to TheNonProfitTimes 2020 Power & Influence TOP 50 list, honoring 2020’s movers and shakers. In 2018, Forbes included Ms. Cohn as one of America’s Top 50 Women in Tech. The National Law Journal named Ms. Cohn one of 100 most influential lawyers in America in 2013, noting: “[I]f Big Brother is watching, he better look out for Cindy Cohn.” She was also named in 2006 for “rushing to the barricades wherever freedom and civil liberties are at stake online.” In 2007 the National Law Journal named her one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America. In 2010 the Intellectual Property Section of the State Bar of California awarded her its Intellectual Property Vanguard Award and in 2012 the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awarded her the James Madison Freedom of Information Award.
Ms. Cohn is the author of the professional memoir, called Privacy’s Defender to be published by MIT Press in March, 2026. She is also the co-host of EFF’s award-winning podcast, How to Fix the Internet.
Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the author of four novels: Automatic Noodle, The Terraformers, The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. As a science journalist, they are the author of Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science. They are a writer for the New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Scientific American, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and Technology Review, among others. They were the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, and have contributed to the public radio shows Science Friday, On the Media, KQED Forum, and Here and Now. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo. -
Jailed Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu Faces Mass Corruption Trial
The imprisoned former mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, appeared in court on Monday to face sweeping corruption and organized crime charges in a mass trial that rights groups say is politically motivated and could result in a prison sentence of more than 2,000 years.
İmamoğlu, a leading rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is being tried alongside more than 400 co-defendants, most of them officials or associates tied to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which he has led since 2019.
Prosecutors accuse him of heading a criminal organization that allegedly used municipal contracts, bribery and rigged tenders to generate money and political influence. If convicted, he could face a combined sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison.
The nearly 3,900-page indictment covers allegations dating back to 2015, when İmamoğlu served as mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district. The case now includes 402 defendants and hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence.
İmamoğlu, who had been widely viewed as one of the few opposition figures capable of defeating Erdoğan in a national election, was detained in March last year on the day his party selected him as its candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
His arrest sparked large demonstrations across Turkey, which were met with police force and mass detentions.
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, Dinushika Dissanayake of Amnesty International described the case as deeply flawed. After nearly a year in detention, she said, İmamoğlu now faces “an absurd array of 142 charges set out in an almost 4,000 page indictment and carrying a ludicrous jail term of more than 2,300 years.”
“This politically-motivated prosecution, which is based almost entirely on secret witness testimony, is riddled with serious international fair trial and rule of law issues,” she said.
She added that the scale of the case — involving hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — made mounting an effective defense nearly impossible and bore “the hallmarks of an attempt to intimidate political opponents of the government and silence wider dissent in the country.”
Tensions surfaced immediately in the courtroom. The presiding judge rejected a request by İmamoğlu’s lawyer to allow the former mayor to deliver a brief greeting and later cut off his microphone when he attempted to speak, according to Turkish media reports from the hearing.
The judge warned İmamoğlu that he could be removed if he continued interrupting the proceedings. Supporters in the courtroom reacted angrily after the judge addressed the former mayor informally. The gallery was packed with opposition politicians, union representatives and relatives of detainees.
The hearing was held under heavy security near the Silivri Prison outside Istanbul. Local authorities have imposed restrictions on protests, banners, filming and press activity around the courthouse until March 31.
The judge said the trial would be held four days a week and could last about six weeks.
The proceedings mark the latest stage in a yearslong political and legal confrontation surrounding one of Turkey’s most prominent opposition figures.
İmamoğlu rose to national prominence in 2019 after winning Istanbul’s mayoral election, defeating the ruling party’s candidate. Turkish authorities later ordered the vote to be rerun, but he won again by an even larger margin.
Since his detention last year, more than 1,100 people have been arrested in connection with protests supporting him, according to rights groups. Critics say the corruption case against the former mayor is part of a broader campaign to weaken political rivals ahead of future elections.
