2023-06-19 06:18:09
On June 4, Russian opponent Alexei Navalny celebrated his birthday in prison. That day, he was posting a message on the Telegram app. He recounted his exchanges with the prison psychologist, who was surprised at his good humor, despite sixteen stays in the mitard. “Of course I would rather not wake up in this dog house, but breakfast with my familyhe wrote. But life is such that we can only bring about progress if some are ready to pay the price for their convictions. The more of these people, the lower the price of each. »
Should we believe that he is so alone, then, Alexeï Navalny, to incur today up to thirty-five years in prison? This Monday, June 19, a new trial begins in Melekhovo prison, where he is being held. The charges are serious and fanciful: “creation of an extremist group”, “call for extremism”, “funding of extremism”, “involvement of minors in criminal activities”, and even “Rehabilitation of Nazism”. All spread out in a 3,828-page file, which the opponent’s lawyers barely had time to study.
Vladimir Putin’s pet peeve due to his sensational investigations into the corruption of the Russian regime and the organization of massive demonstrations against the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny was arrested in January 2021 on his return to Moscow, after hospitalization in Germany following a poisoning with a nerve agent that he blames on Russian authorities. This absence from Russian territory earned him on his return a first sentence of two and a half years in prison for violation of his judicial control. Incarcerated, he learned in prison of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which he severely criticizes.
Lack of medical care
The following year, in March 2022, Alexei Navalny was again sentenced to a nine-year prison term for « fraud » et « outrage », which he is serving in a maximum security prison. There, the former lawyer says he regularly suffers bullying, punishment, and confinement to the mitard for arbitrary pretexts – having buttoned his prison uniform incorrectly, or not having washed his face at the scheduled time. His team also reports that prisoners who are psychologically unstable or particularly dirty have been incarcerated in the same cell as him, another way of exerting psychological pressure on him. More seriously, the prison authorities would not grant him the medical care he needed.
The new charges against Alexei Navalny relate to the activities of his organization, the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK), banned in Russia. Navalny’s supporters say the lawsuits retroactively criminalize all of FBK’s activities since its inception in 2011. Investigators are also reportedly trying to link the opponent to a bombing that killed Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg on April 2.
These new charges come as Russian authorities step up their crackdown on opponents. On Wednesday June 14, an ally of Alexei Navalny, Lilia Tchanycheva, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for ” extremism “. In this context, the conviction of Alexeï Navalny at the end of this new trial is not the subject of any mystery.
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