The well-known Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is serving a prison term in the Yves Rocher case, addressed supporters on the first anniversary of his imprisonment. “Fear nothing. This is our country and we have no other. The only fear that should be is that we will leave our homeland to be plundered by a bunch of liars, thieves and hypocrites. We will surrender without a fight, voluntarily, and our future, and the future of our children. Thank you all so much for your support – I feel it,” the politician wrote in a post posted on Instagram on Monday, January 17.
Exactly one year ago, Navalny returned to Russia from Berlin, where he was undergoing rehabilitation after being poisoned in Russia with a Novichok military agent. The politician, who gathered to meet hundreds of people, was detained at the border control at Sheremetyevo Airport and sent to a pre-trial detention center. He remained there until the consideration of the petition of the Federal Penitentiary Service, which demanded that Navalny’s probation in the Yves Rocher case be replaced with a real one due to failure to appear at the inspection. As a result, the court sent the oppositionist to correctional colony No. 2 in the Vladimir region for 2.5 years.
“I don’t know at all when my space journey will end and whether it will end at all – it was only on Friday that I was informed that one more of my criminal cases was going to court. And next in line is one where I am an extremist and a terrorist,” Navalny said.
Bundestag deputy Renata Alt criticized Navalny’s imprisonment
On the occasion of the first anniversary of Navalny’s detention, Renata Alt, chairwoman of the German Bundestag Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, issued a statement sharply criticizing Russia. “Russia, with this arrest and trial, which does not even deserve such a name, grossly violated the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” she said, noting that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also considers Navalny’s sentence illegal.
“This is a political verdict, the purpose of which is to silence an eloquent and popular critic of the Putin regime,” Alt said, urging German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her visit to Moscow to demand that the Russian leadership release Navalny, his supporters and convicted participants in last year’s January protests.
“Human rights are indivisible and not subject to bargaining, they rightfully belong to the entire Russian people, regardless of how the Kremlin views it,” Renata Alt said.
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