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Cheldiyev, who is from North Ossetia – a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe – was detained in April 2020 after organising a 2,000-strong anti-lockdown protest in his hometown due to concerns that restrictions would cost many their jobs.

The article says he was getting in trouble organizing protests already in 2018.

You have to understand that these are classic NGO/color revolution methods. They find someone who can organize people and then they fund them/promote them doing so - the reason for organizing the protests changes and is irrelevant, the key is to identify anything the local population is angry about and use it to create chaos and anti-government sentiment. You do that in enough places and it snowballs. Targeting a region like North Ossetia is exactly what you'd expect western intelligence to do.