THE verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky was “shameful” and boded ill for Russia said Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the liberal opposition. He pointed out that the decision to sentence the former oil tycoon to the maximum 14-year term on December 30th “had nothing to do with the rule of law” and predicted it would “have very negative consequences”.

Mr Nemtsov did not have to wait long to be proved right. The next day, after speaking in a rally supporting freedom of assembly, he was arrested (see picture) and sent to jail for the maximum 15-day sentence. Several other opposition activists were nabbed too, but he was the main target.

Mr Nemtsov served as a deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and (unlike both Mr Khodorkovsky and some of those now in the Kremlin) he emerged from the troubled 1990s with his reputation intact. The mistreatment of him seems pointlessly malevolent. He poses no threat to the government. The rally was authorised and he was on his way home when the police stopped him. He was charged with disobeying the police and swearing, despite video-footage that showed him asking the police to “calm down”. A judge would not admit this as evidence. The court disregarded witness statements supporting him and would not let him appeal against his conviction.

What is this about? Presumably it is a display of brute power by Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister. Mr Nemtsov's treatment flows from Mr Khodorkovsky's. During a recent phone-in programme, Mr Putin pre-empted the court's verdict by saying Mr Khodorkovsky was guilty of theft and murder, leaving the impression that the judge was merely implementing Mr Putin's decision. The fact that the verdict made no sense—the new charges contradicted others that Mr Khodorkovsky had previously been found guilty of—only made the injustice more dramatic. Mr Khodorkovsky's real offence was the fact that his first prison sentence was due to end. Chucking Mr Nemtsov in the slammer on trumped-up charges, so soon after Western objections to Mr Khodorkovsky's treatment, only rammed home Mr Putin's message to Russia's elite and to the West: forget liberal chatter about human rights, forget notions of legitimacy, forget any idea that Russia will bow to the West. I'm in charge.

Stand up and be counted

Mr Putin is gambling that Western politicians are too weak and Western investors too greedy to stand up to him. They should prove him wrong.

That requires a show of principle and a change in tactics. The West should recognise that this marks a new, more repressive phase of Mr Putin's rule, and treat Mr Nemtsov as a prisoner of conscience. America has complained, as have some members of the European Parliament, but European leaders have been shamefully silent. Of course, Russia will continue to reject any protests—as it did over Mr Khodorkovsky's sentence—but if the Europeans are silent, Mr Putin will assume that they acquiesce. The EU's interests may differ from America's in dealing with Russia, but its values do not. Fabricating cases against political opponents is unacceptable whether you are in Paris, Berlin or Washington. If Russia continues to act in this way, it should be chucked out of the G8.

The change of tactics involves Dmitry Medvedev, the president. The West has been trying to help him in an imagined rivalry with Mr Putin. But his attempts to dissociate himself from the treatment of Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Nemtsov do not absolve him from the responsibility that he bears, as guardian of Russia's constitution, for the shortcomings of the courts and the government. He should be told that firmly.