in may's parliamentary election could yet create an unstoppable democratic force jonah hold al-jazeera at. tennis players have been giving a blunt response after complaining about being put into quarantine in australia more players have been ordered into hotel isolation after arriving for this trade open another 4 participants in the tournament including a player have tested positive. on it it's been a bit of a bit of chatter from a number of players about the rules the rules apply to them as they applaud everybody else and are all briefed on that before they can and that was a condition on which like not so i went there's no special treatment the people being traded because of our stuff doesn't treat you specially so i needed to wait. it's good to have you with us hello adrian sitting in here in doha the headlines and al-jazeera our investigative unit has obtained videos smuggled out of china

that show the earliest days of the covert 19 outbreak in the city of who han they show police cracking down on journalists and hospital wards full of newly infected people u.s. defense officials say they fear a possible inside attack at the inauguration of president elect joe biden the f.b.i. is now vetting all $25000.00 national guard troops deployed in parts of the u.s. capitol washington remains on the lockdown with unprecedented levels of security. russian opposition figure alexina valley is calling on his supporters to take to the streets it follows a cool thought of him to remain in detention for the next 30 days he was arrested on sunday after returning from germany where he'd spent 5 months recovering after being poisoned earlier about he declared that he'd been subjected to a lawless trial. because they're saying this is an open court decision on the police chief's motion for my wrist why is called in the police station why didn't they inform anyone why was i not i've seen nonsense in the justice system before

but this apparently that old man in the bunker is so afraid of everything that they defiantly ripped up and threw away the criminal proceedings code what is happening here is just impossible this is ultimate lawlessness i cannot call it something else the constitutional court of the central african republic has confirmed the re-election of president fast and. the opposition wanted a rerun of december's vote they say that pre-election violence scared away voters rebels opposed to a daughter's re-election unsuccessfully tried to invade the capital last week but they threatened to attack again if the government didn't step down by sunday the head of one of the world's most influential companies samsung has been jailed for corruption jay wiley has been sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison by a south korean cause he was convicted of bribing an associate of the former president of the hey there's the headless bodies fear i was there after today's inside story next.

last summer escaped death to being poisoned now russian opposition figure alexina valmy is detained on his return to moscow just how much of a challenge is about the president that if it comes and this is inside story. well welcome to the program on kim international called the nation is growing over the arrest of russian opposition leader and exit novelli and he flew into moscow

the valmy spent the past 5 months in germany after being poisoned and that attack he says was ordered by president vladimir putin both u.s. administrations the u.k. and the european union a calling for his immediate release germany has described the valleys arrest as in comprehensible well amnesty international accuses russia of waging a relentless campaign against him will bring in our panel of experts to discuss this further but 1st has. it sakes a particular type of person to survive a probable state sanctioned poisoning and then return to the country you believe tried to kill you a country where you face imminent arrest. never gave the slightest suggestion he would do anything else following months of recuperation in germany alexei and wife yulia took their seats on a moscow bound plane from berlin magazine. but it's been a monopoly boy bring us a little vodka we're flying home says yulia quoting

a much loved russian gangster movie it's a never alley hole mark that he and his family make light of the many dangers they face and what he faced was jail on arrival he violated his suspended sentence by leaving russia to receive life saving treatment he makes a choice is a brave man because he always pretended he's a brave man who. has no fear before that gorgeous he has no fear of welton he has no fear of law and order machine now it's to time to prove. prove these claims. and show the deeds that's why he states brought. well he diminish his claims of being well number one and brave for position have

the airport where he was due to land police detained members of his team and threw supporters out around his plane was then diverted to another moscow airport away from the crowds after landing he spoke to the journalists who traveled with him yeah absolutely was not i am not afraid i feel ok we can free immigration i will post it in go home because i know that i am right i know the order criminal cases against me have been forged all the scary stories that they have tried to scare me wave it is not only the truth by my side but also to courts. but out passport control officer a goodbye kiss with his wife police led the valley away the kremlin denies the f.s.b. had any role in last year's novacek poisoning that nearly kills the opposition leader but now it seems likely russia will jail no brownie for surviving it rory chalons al-jazeera russia has dismissed the widespread condemnation of the valleys of wrist foreign minister sergei lavrov says western politicians are trying to

distract people from their problems at home. we can see how they've jumped at the news about novell the returning to russia you can feel the joy in their carbon copy comments joy because novell nice case apparently helps western politicians think that they can now distract their citizens from the deepest crisis the liberal system has ever experienced develop these cases gain foreign political residence artificially and baselessly everything happening to develop new relating to his return and detention falls within the competence of the law. let's take a closer look now at how divel may become one of the kremlin's top political enemies the 44 year old anti-corruption campaign has long been the most prominent face of opposition of russia to president vladimir putin in 2008 divel they began blogging about alleged malpractise and corruption and some of the biggest state controlled comics including oil firms banks and ministries is mocking of the establishment loyal to putin going to millions of russian followers on social media

and the 2011 parliamentary election of only urged his supporters to vote for any party except putin's united russia that he says is full of crooks and thieves putin's party ended up winning but with a much reduced majority that only has also led nationwide protests against the government but his bid to challenge putin at the ballot box failed when he was barred from running in the $28000.00 presidential polls due to embezzlement charges that only denies the accusation and says the case is pinned this it motivates. and joining me now are our guests in moscow we have alexander solove if member of the board of open russia an opposition movement in london we have sam green the director of the russia institute at king's college london and back in moscow that amir something called political scientists at the russian academy of sciences one welcome to your wall thank you for joining us here on inside story i'd like to start with you mr green if i can develop he knew that this would likely happen that

he would lie. been arrested or detained on his return to russia so why has he returned what's the calculation here well i think the calculation is that 1st of all you know i think your report said that he was returning to the country that poisoned him i think of all they were probably just that and say that it was the government that poisoned him and that he claims as much right to the country as as as as as putin does right so he you know is a political activist he has you know become the leader all of you know what remains the largest and most powerful independent political organization in russia and so the only way that that organization contests parliamentary elections that are coming up this year and continues to challenge the government is is if he is there this is on the cover what do you think the calculation is in detaining him do you think that the order came all the way from the kremlin. so you know i don't

think so actually i looked partly agree with my esteemed colleague sam because 1st of all the case awful poisoning was never proved in that he germany. actually delivered. documentation but not medical cases medical medical indications that he was actually a place and sold it the way we might call it to a large poisoning secondly i think i am some is right that. natalee is not was not going to stay as and then the gray in the us johnny fall good because. he's more politician the he's a political leader in russia in his native country than just staying and then a gray and just a man in. the hideaway somewhere in europe i can see such a smiling there mr salahi of can i bring to you and what's your take on all of that do you think that's

a rest or detaining order came all the way from the kremlin well absolutely sure that everything which is going on in russia considering politics and all that stuff is being under the kremlin's direct control of course probably criminal does not control all the details of the process but the general well order 'd of course comes from there most of the old as well my come even from putin personally because it seems that he's extremely afraid of he's totally deprived from reality sitting in his bunker and without even getting it well just a couple of times or really so. i know how that may sound but from the other hand. as long as it's far as we see our maps will be sure that that was poisoning and that all of these those poisoning started from the very beginning. the putins era

from the very beginning of the 2000 and they all happened just before the flight or during the flight just because it's very convenient for the season to poison a person just before the flight because it's very difficult to to provide the treatment on the flight there are there is nothing necessary to bowdon so that poison takes its time just to to kill the person and it looks like just someone felt sick and very very suspicious death but still no no proof that cetera and it used to happen for like 20 years and now we see that this is not even the 1st time i didn't get them was i was poisoned twice but they're going to do it was poison then thankfully they survived but how many people did not so of course i'm absolutely sure this super sophisticated chemical weapon is being used by the direct order of the traveler interesting me actually in the valley himself put out a video which has been viewed more than 22000000 times which i think we have we

have that video and in a tape makes a phone call to one of the f.s.b. agents that he says. that proves that the you know basically that he's admitting to playing some part in his poisoning what do you think mr green all of this has done to nivelle me to his popularity to the opposition. well i think that's what we're about to find out certainly it has not put him off the fight has probably galvanized his. dedication to to continue this process of resistance in russia and it has certainly i think sharpened the attention of people around him right about the state sort i think there was a lot a long time when people felt that you know the kremlin was was going to tolerate him to a certain degree and we've seen the kremlin become increasingly nervous about its ability to manage politics through you know to nuance and to a nicety and it has again sharpened its own in its own it right the question

is really whether that matters to very many russian people right so we did see i don't know the full numbers but hundreds perhaps thousands of people show up yesterday who airport they did divert the ball his plane apparently has as a result of that and so not only is is i think both giving. the government a chance to show its true stripes in the way that it is treating him and that the griot of anxiety with which they're treating this case but they're also giving he's giving the population and his supporters an opportunity to decide right does it matter to them what happens to to him and we're going to have to wait and see mrs thought make of what do you think do you think person is nervous of no value of the strengthening of opposing voices. it could be so because probably on the coming out palm and through elections and on the

more. space for president putin to. have. at least so-called ziering all the constitution and the next presidential told him i'd be he might be afraid but i think that that isn't the case because look and i'm just want to argue with salman for russia just awful this is the. mets are off the. inch on the law and i would like to return to to remind that 2 criminal cases steal hang on. mr natale and this is according to russian law the suit criminal cases should be should be should be somehow. alone and so he might have a good chance a bad chance would like. you would like to do to here that to be

brought to. a criminal court and sentenced to prison we might have a tit case is that he says that yes i think a motivated i want to bring you back in mr salvia of you are member of the opposition is there a trend of clamping down on dissent a you worried for your are in safety. well of course doing opposition politics in russia is dangerous thing because doing opposition politics in many of the rich aren't countries that are a dangerous thing sometimes it depends on the authorities but our authorities has proven to be quite cruel and quite capable of. eliminating their rivals and their critics so many everyone are a little bit afraid everyone are anxious this is normal nobody wants to go to jail nobody wants to be killed but so we just cannot leave it like that because i

mean we see that the authorities are leading our country to it is us. and this disaster will affect every ordinary people those who are now in power it wouldn't affect them they have all their assets in europe in the united states because they adore in the reality they adore and love europeans countries and the united states they have their property their have their houses their families their children they have even their lovers there so they will move but we going to have to solve all those problems and that's why i totally agree with this statement that this is our country and i'm going to go back to my motherland and i'm not going to stand this one those peace and troops and lists kleptocrats are saying that's a must leave no they must leave we must so we have a total right to state to live in our country and to take care of our country

because they don't care they they really care only of themselves so please don't mix the interests of prudence kleptocrats regime and the russian interests because russian authorities are not being driven by national interest at all i want to bring at you back in mississauga mcauliffe do you think there is a trend of clamping down on dissent in russia and do you think that will impact the duma election. yes i think so that most probably 1st of all i would like to say that we actually witnessing now the. continuation although mr not only sa got 2.0 and that said and it could be so i know that the killer speaking that the. so-called russian opposition is just in a week in the wicca position right now and mr not only probably ultimate goal is to fall taking decisions or its own sort of russia to be

elida again we'll see the supposition movement and we we might see in the in the coming weeks what what will be the outcome of that and the secondly i would like to ask my esteemed colleague alexander the question why do you think why in this to president putin didn't. stop the volley from escaping from immigrating to germany for treatment and didn't actually a russkie him all just detain him a right after these as you put it the sole call to a legit poisoning of him back in russia go ahead alexandra de do you have a response to that. sure towsley solution or that that was in their interests to get rid of another opposition figure the most prominent one and that's

always a good chance to make somebody leave the country so they s'posed and doesn't pose any threats within the country and it's been done constantly with a lot of different opposition figures so the threats are working some of them are leaving the country some of them are already has already left and for now they are living full several years out of the country because of the criminal cases initiated against them because not everyone are ready to spend their lives in jail and of all he was not put into jail immediately in russia because they probably didn't want to him to become a hero but now they see this that all the threats they've made while he's been in berlin are useless and he's and he's bike and now the situation seems to be. not under their control they don't like it and probably they will try to make something like put him into prison for

a short period of time and see what's going to happen next and if there is no reaction from people is going to become a if the population will know will show no reaction he will probably stay in a jail for for a pretty long period of time but anyway all the actions that are being taken by the authorities are making him a big hero and that sounds ridiculous from men ridicule the actions of the authorities that are reading this because they are so much afraid of any alternative use really even if the alternative view is wrong there anyway a really if great of this alternative this is the nightmare work for the regime with a grain do you agree with that the benefit cation of the valley just adds to his coals. oh no we'll look at and i think the has an advantage right it controls pretty much all the television most of the media in the country and all of the political parties that are allowed to actually compete in parliamentary elections and so. it has the ability to paint the ball in the

way that it wants to but it does seem to be doing things that then have to be explained right so the saga that we saw yesterday in terms of you know trying to develop his airplane around in the air and and then today you know having a court hearing you know right in the police station where he's been detained with about a minute's notice for his lawyer right does not project confidence right and it does suggest that there is a degree of nervousness in in the kremlin a reality is that autocratic regimes don't really tend to fall because they are you know brought down by a challenger from the outside they fall because people begin to believe that the power of the autocrat is no longer inevitable right and then that power will shift very rapidly to to whatever leader is is available right so really that equipment needs to be very careful about how it projects both power and weakness. i want to

talk about the international reaction as we said. in the u.s. and the u.k. the european union all calling for the valley's immediate release germany describing these arrests as in comprehensible. i want to ask mrs something called how do you think of all these arrests will impact detention rather will impact russia's relations with the rest of the world. i think they're there they're answers directly actually because because i'll face it happening right now. we could expect to kill a speaking war. address reactions to these deeds and we can we can expect that more sanctions and russia is still suffering from sanctions already and was sanctioned sic could be imposed and that's one thing and the other thing is that the relationship between russian federation and

unfortunately and the major western countries like the u.s. like johnny u.k. could be spoiled to the point of 0 because because of that he's. ultimately opposite positions on the natalee case in russia and in the western countries but just to add to that i would like to say that. legally speaking this is an intel no a russian case according to the russian law but as international reaction we see that russia could get away without much trouble after these sanctions where imposed on russia after the joining. crimea so who knows and that will should see what will be in the near future if more iraqi

if more sanctions will be in boston russia i think the future will show what will be the relationship between say president elect biden and the stray ssion. coming to power in 2 days and what will be the license trip between russia and major western european countries you talk about these charges being the domain of of russia itself and of the russian judicial system. yes the question is do people have faith in the russian judicial system to come back to you missed to some of the of do you think that the russian people have the appetite to really challenge the system to make noise to put themselves in the way of danger to see change. well you know it's always quite hard to predict that. we should take into consideration of course the whole state machine of propaganda that works. on one thing on making people a learned helplessness and it's doing great well especially considering the budgets

so people are well a lot of people know everything. but the weirdest thing that smallest of them are not ready to go on the streets yet though sometimes. well big protests happen in moscow for instance like 100000 people may appear in the streets but that doesn't lead to well that does lead to something but not to the not to the conditions that people expected so i do not know how people going to react right now moreover it's it's even more important that it's minus 20 right now in moscow so it's quite difficult to protest in the street so i do not know how people going to react and the only thing i know is that the air really people are frustrated people are like people understand everything about the nature of this directed system but they keep sitting home and them more mering and complaining

that no matter how hard we try we we're not going to change anything because nothing depends on us so are. very grateful to people like aleksei who continue their struggle because they show on their own example that still something is possible and know we cannot just sit up and wait while thinks change on their own we must do something and i hope people will somehow react there's so much more we could talk about unfortunately for time we will have to leave it there thank you to all of our guests alexander sylvia of sam greene and venomous all the calls and thank you for wanting you can see the program again any time by visiting our website on just now dot com and author of the discussion go to facebook. page facebook dot com for a.j. inside story it also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a.j. inside story for making that al for the whole team here about an hour.

al-jazeera is an investigative unit obtained censored and unseen video from will hard filmed as the coronavirus are great i was just beginning to lose an unknown all those years in the us how did we not know what exposing this secrecy and censorship by chinese authorities. on the box to lock up health system struggling to cope al-jazeera investigation 3 dates that still the world we know what is happening in our region we know how to get the date that

others and all i was done but only if you are guided by the party of the only purpose i did the iraq had that time and if the programming can go live on the amnesty to go live to work another story that may not be mainstream is happening and fires there's going to more negative you've. done everything by. the way that you cal death story isn't what can make a difference the venezuela colombia border has become a stomping ground for trespasses. as desperate people transgress an illegal passage . to feed an emerging field trafficking markets. we follow that perilous journey unguarded for the line of fire. risking it all. venezuelan colombia. on al-jazeera.

this is al jazeera. hello i'm adrian for the given this is that he was live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes the images from war han the china tried to censor and i was in syria investigation raises questions about beijing's response in the 1st days of the coronavirus outbreak. security checks on the security forces guarding the us.