Already imprisoned for nine years in harsh conditions, the main opponent of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, was sentenced on Friday to 19 years in prison for “extremism” after a trial behind closed doors.
With his usual tenacity, the 47-year-old anti-corruption activist called on the Russians, in a message broadcast by his team, to continue to “resist” against the “gang of traitors, thieves and scoundrels who have taken power “.
“(Vladimir) Putin must not achieve his goal. Do not lose the will to resist,” he wrote, saying he considered his sentence the equivalent of a “life sentence”.
“Its duration is measured according to the duration of my life or the duration of this regime”, further indicated Mr. Navalny, who will have to serve his sentence in a “special regime” colony, either in one prisons with the most sinister reputation, usually intended for the most dangerous criminals and lifers.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, told AFP that the sentence took into account the approximately two and a half years in prison already served as well as his ten months of house arrest in 2014-2015.
When the verdict was read, Alexeï Navalny appeared smiling and relaxed, chatting with his co-defendant Daniel Kholodny, a former manager of his YouTube channel who was sentenced to eight years in prison, according to AFP journalists on the spot.
Major Western countries have strongly condemned this heavy sentence.
The United States denounced a judgment based “on unfounded accusations”, “unfair conclusion of an unfair trial” and London considered that it showed “contempt” for human rights.
Germany denounced a “flagrant injustice” and France a “judicial harassment”.
The UN called for the “immediate release” of Mr. Navalny and the EU deemed this “arbitrary” sentence “unacceptable”.
Outside the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo, 250 kilometers east of Moscow, where Mr. Navalny is serving his previous sentence and where the trial was held, some of his supporters made the trip to support him.
Alexander Shubin, an 18-year-old student, explains that the opponent represents “a hope for Russia”, a hope that “something can change for the better”. “As long as Putin is in power, nothing will change,” he says.
“Power simply wants to get rid of all its opponents and frighten their supporters”, abounds Denis, a 36-year-old Moscow engineer, who is worried about the new conditions of detention promised to Mr. Navalny, in colonies where the detainees are not have “no longer any chance of seeing the world free”.
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.
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 from Germany to Russia, at the beginning of 2021, after surviving in extremis a poisoning which he attributes to the Russian security services having acted on orders from the Kremlin.
He is now condemned for the third time. Regularly placed in solitary confinement and faced with health problems, Mr. Navalny 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 (…) serves as a warning to critics of the state throughout the country”, reacted in a press release Amnesty International.
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.
Always combative, Mr. Navalny recounts on social networks, through messages sent by his lawyers, his prison life and denounces, often with irony, the harassment he suffers.
He was thus sent 17 times to a disciplinary cell, where he was forced to listen to speeches by Vladimir Putin.
Mr. 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.
04/08/2023 20:46:15 – Melekhovo (Russia) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
