2024-02-17 20:40:48
The news was a complete shock to me. I didn’t even believe it and I still don’t fully believe it. The only news of Navalny’s unexpected death came from a Russian prison. We must appeal very categorically to the Russian authorities. We need an independent expertise, an independent investigation into the causes of Navalny’s death. This was stated by Mariana Katsarova, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, in an interview with the United Nations Information Service.
“They moved him to a colony that’s so far above the Arctic Circle. It’s hard to get there, so neither his family nor his lawyers have been there. That’s why no one, except the prison authorities, has saw Navalny dead.”
“If this happened, if this is true, it is a huge misfortune and a huge loss for Russian civil society, for the world civil society, I would say. Navalny was the brightest, the boldest critic of the authorities in his country,” she added. she.
Katsarova added that Navalny was not afraid to speak about the corruption of the authorities and the police, about the human rights situation in Russia, which worsened not every year, but every hour, especially after the start of the war against Ukraine.
“I, my fellow rapporteurs, other organizations and human rights activists in Russia have long argued that the conditions under which Navalny is being held are excruciating and can amount to torture and ill-treatment. He is being held in penal isolation cells, he has been held without trial, incommunicado. Then, in October last year, three of his lawyers were arrested and charged under a section of the Criminal Code for extremism.”
She recalled that Navalny disappeared last year, in December.
“Then everyone in the world was asking: where is Navalny and when will he appear? And he did appear. Alexei Gorinov also appeared, also an anti-war critic and a local politician from Moscow. Seven years in prison. Also a very serious health condition.”
“Navalny ended up in the Arctic Circle – one of those colonies used during the Gulag and political repressions. There was not even communication with the outside world because the Internet was not working all the time. Everything looked as if the Russian authorities were deliberately isolated Navalny from the outside world, from access to information, from access to his lawyers, to his family,” Katsarova said.
She added that he and everyone around him are accused of “extremism”, and there is no such term in international law.
“It has no legal force in international law. All this was done to silence him. At the same time, it is very important that all political prisoners in Russia be immediately released. The international human rights organization “Memorial” counted more than 500 political prisoners. I believe they are much more. These are journalists and human rights activists, activists, especially anti-war activists, people who are detained continuously in Russia because they express their position regarding the war with Ukraine.”
“When on December 25 the authorities did show both Alexei Navalny and Alexei Gorinov, Gorinov for the first time began to get access to adequate medical care. He was taken out of the colony and shown to doctors. He has tuberculosis and a very serious lung disease. Therefore we must not wait. All political prisoners, all dissidents in Russia, journalists and human rights defenders who are currently in prison for their views must be released immediately. This will be the only justice for Navalny,” Katsarova said categorically.