Already imprisoned for nine years in harsh conditions, the main opponent of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny, was sentenced on Friday to 19 years in prison for “extremism” after a trial behind closed doors. The 47-year-old anti-corruption activist will have to serve his sentence in a “special regime” colony, one of the worst-known prisons in Russia, usually for the most dangerous criminals and lifers.
The latest verdict in yet another sham trial against Alexey @navalny is unacceptable. This arbitrary conviction is the response to his courage to speak critically against the Kremlin’s regime.
I reiterate the EU’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Navalny.
—Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) August 4, 2023
The UN and the EU deplore this condemnation
When the verdict was read, Alexeï Navalny appeared smiling and looking relaxed, according to AFP journalists on the spot, talking with his co-accused Daniel Kholodny, a former manager of his YouTube channel. The UN immediately called for the “immediate release” of Alexei Navalny and the EU deemed this “arbitrary” condemnation “unacceptable”. I’Germany denounced a “flagrant injustice” and France a “judicial harassment”. In the 18th month of the assault on Ukraine, Russia is facing a wave of repression targeting both prominent opponents, imprisoned or driven into exile, and thousands of ordinary Russians who criticized the offensive.
Dass Russlands Willkürjustiz Alexej #Nawalny weitere 19 Jahre wegsperrt, ist blankes Unrecht. Putin fürchtet nichts mehr als Eintreten gegen Krieg & Korruption und für Demokratie – selbst aus der Gefängniszelle heraus. Er wird Damit Kritische Stimmen nicht zum Schweigen bringen.
— Minister Annalena Baerbock (@ABaerbock) August 4, 2023
Long-time critic of the Russian president, Alexei Navalny saw justice hounding him before the conflict in Ukraine but his fate has worsened since. He was imprisoned on his return to Russia in early 2021, after surviving poisoning in extremis which he blames on the Russian security services having acted on the orders of the Kremlin, then he has now been sentenced three times.
For its part, France condemned on Friday “with the greatest vigor” the 19-year prison sentence imposed on Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, seeing it as “judicial harassment” against him. “We once again call on the Russian authorities to release Alexei Navalny immediately and unconditionally, as well as all political prisoners,” responded a spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry.
“Stalinist” punishment
His last trial for “extremism” took place behind closed doors in the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo, 250 km east of Moscow, where he is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence following his conviction in June 2022 for “fraud”. Alexei Navalny, regularly placed in solitary confinement and faced with health problems, said on Thursday that he expected a “long, Stalinist sentence”. The man who made himself known in particular for his investigations into the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s system and the demonstrations he organized is accused of having created an “extremist organization”.
His conviction “is a sinister act of political revenge which not only targets Navalny personally but which serves as a warning to critics of the state throughout the country”, reacted in a press release the NGO Amnesty International. The sentence of Daniel Kholodny was not known at the present time: the hearing was broadcast on a screen for the journalists gathered in the press room of the IK-6 colony and the conditions of the broadcast were very bad.
Disciplinary cell
From his prison, the opponent has also turned into a fierce critic of the conflict in Ukraine. During his trial, he thus denounced the “tens of thousands of deaths in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century”. “Sooner or later (Russia) will recover. And it depends on us what it will build on in the future,” he added. The Kremlin presents the opponent as a simple criminal, ensuring that the proceedings against him have nothing to do with politics. Always combative, Alexeï Navalny recounts on social networks, through messages sent by his lawyers, his prison life and denounces, often with irony, the harassment he suffers there.
He was thus sent 17 times to a disciplinary cell, where he was forced to listen to speeches by Vladimir Poutine. It was in one of these cells that he awaited his verdict, punished by 13 days of solitary confinement for having “badly presented” to his guards, explained at the end of July his lawyer Vadim Kobzev on X (ex -Twitter). Alexei Navalny’s legal marathon also risks not stopping there. He says he is also being prosecuted for a case of “terrorism” in another procedure, of which few details are known at the moment.