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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2024
Russia: The Kremlin Is Responsible for the Death of Aleksey Navalny
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Democratic governments must reinforce their efforts to end the regime’s abuses and support Navalny’s vision for a free Russia.
WASHINGTON—In response to the death of Aleksey Navalny, a leading political opponent of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Freedom House president Michael J. Abramowitz issued the following statement:
"Today we received the horrible reports of Aleksey Navalny’s death in a Siberian penal colony. Navalny was an extraordinary leader in the fight for freedom, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin’s corrupt oligarchy, and a charismatic advocate who set forth a vision for a Russia where power would rest with the Russian people. We express our deepest condolences to his wife Yulia Navalnaya, their two children, and all those who loved him and were inspired by his courage.
"The reason for Navalny’s death is clear: Putin is a coward. He fears his own people. A strong leader with confidence in his public support does not poison, imprison, and murder his opponents in cold blood. Putin and his henchmen are responsible for Navalny’s unjust imprisonment and for his death.
"Freedom House stands in solidarity with all those who strive for a free Russia—a Russia that respects not only the political rights and civil liberties of its citizens, but also the agency and sovereignty of its neighbors. For years, the Kremlin has sought to rule by fear, repression, and violence. But Navalny and so many other political prisoners, exiled journalists and activists, and ordinary Russians have shown time and again that they will not abandon their hope for a country free of corruption, impunity, and dictatorship. While we may have lost Navalny, his indomitable spirit and his work will live on in this cause. As Navalny said
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himself, ‘My message [to the Russian people] for the situation when I am killed is very simple—don’t give up.’
"As for Putin, he has already amassed a hideous legacy of corpses, rubble, shame, and failure. It is the grave obligation of every democratic government to help contain the damage and hasten its end. They must do more than condemn Navalny’s death. They must significantly strengthen their sanctions on the Kremlin, redouble their efforts to liberate the hundreds of political prisoners in Russia, repurpose Moscow’s frozen assets
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to aid victims of the regime, and most critically, equip Ukraine to defeat Putin’s boundless aggression on the battlefield."
Background:
Aleksey Navalny was a Russian opposition politician, a prominent anticorruption activist, and a leading critic of the Kremlin. In 2011, he created the Anti-Corruption Foundation
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(FBK), which has released numerous investigative reports on corruption among Russia’s top officials, politicians, and businessmen. FBK quickly gained a reputation as one of the largest and most important anticorruption nongovernmental organizations in Russia, and its activities were funded by private donations. Navalny was also a candidate in the Moscow mayoral election in 2013.
Navalny has more than six million YouTube subscribers, and his content has received more than a billion views. Through his social media channels, he and his team have published their exposés on corruption in Russia, organized political demonstrations, and informed voters about strategies to defeat the ruling United Russia party. In a 2011 radio interview, Navalny described United Russia as a "party of crooks and thieves
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," which became a popular epithet among the Russian opposition community.
Russian authorities have responded to Navalny’s work with various tactics of persecution, including the initiation of politically motivated criminal charges in 2013.
In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned in Russia with the nerve agent known as Novichok, which left him in a coma. With the permission of Russian authorities, he was transported to Germany for treatment. A December 2020 report
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published by The Insider and Bellingcat implicated agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the assassination attempt. Citing a lack of evidence, Russian authorities refused to pursue the case. On June 6, 2023, the European Court of Human Rights formally recognized that the Russian authorities did not conduct an effective investigation into the poisoning.
After recovering in Germany, Navalny returned to Moscow on January 17, 2021, and was immediately detained. In February 2021, a Moscow court ruled that he had violated the terms of an earlier probation and sentenced him to three and a half years in prison. That sentence was extended to nine years in a “strict regime penal colony” in 2022, and in August 2023 he was sentenced to an additional 19 years for “extremism.”
Navalny was initially sent in February 2021 to the Pokrov penal colony in Vladimir Oblast, where he filed a formal complaint accusing the prison authorities of torture
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through sleep deprivation. His legal team also publicly aired concerns about his poor medical treatment
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and an apparent loss of sensation in his spine and legs. In December 2023, Navalny was secretly moved to a correctional colony in the remote settlement of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, north of the Arctic Circle. He did not appear for an online hearing regarding his complaints on December 6, 2023, and was held incommunicado for almost three weeks, despite over 600 requests for information from his defense team.
He did appear for an online court hearing just a day before his death was reported, and was seen laughing and joking with the court officials, showing no obvious signs of an acute health crisis.
Russia is rated Not Free
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in Freedom in the World 2023 and Not Free
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in Freedom on the Net 2023, and it is categorized as a Consolidated Authoritarian Regime
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in Nations in Transit 2023. Russia is also one of the world’s worst perpetrators of transnational repression
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.
Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free.
We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.
Copyright © 2023 Freedom House
All rights reserved.
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