Opposition leader Alexei Navalny risks another 20 years of imprisonment. Here he is seen on a TV screen during a video link in court in June. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/TT
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny risks another 20 years of imprisonment. The already imprisoned critic of the regime is accused of extremism. ”It will be a long prison sentence, a Stalinist punishment,” Navalny tweeted.
The 47-year-old Navalny is already in prison after previous convictions. On Friday, an additional 20 years could be added to his sentence. This time, he is accused of financing extremist activities, publicly inciting extremist activities, and ”rehabilitating Nazi ideology”.
Ahead of the court’s verdict, Navalny urges Russians to continue protesting. ”When the verdict is announced, please just think about one really important thing: what more can I personally do to resist,” he writes on X, formerly Twitter.
The trial has been held behind closed doors at the high-security prison IK-6 where Navalny is held.
”Incoherent war”
In his closing statement, Navalny criticized Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying that Russia is ”bathing in a pool of mud or blood.” ”Around it lie tens of thousands of people who have been killed in the most stupid and meaningless war of the 2000s,” he said in court.
In the days leading up to the verdict, Navalny has been held in a punishment cell. In total, he has spent nearly 200 days in solitary confinement, according to his spokesperson, who also accuses the prison authorities of torture.
Navalny has complained of health problems and significant weight loss due to the strict prison conditions. He is already serving a nine-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2022 of embezzlement and contempt of court.
Poisoned
Navalny was seen during parts of the 2010s as one of the few opposition figures in Russia who had a chance to challenge President Vladimir Putin’s regime. But in 2020, he was poisoned in a plot traced back to the security service FSB.
After several months of recovery in Germany, he returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was immediately arrested and subsequently convicted for violating parole.
Navalny’s convictions are considered politically motivated by both his supporters and the international community, as a way for the regime to silence criticism of the Kremlin.
His party offices were labeled as extremist organizations by Russian authorities in 2021, which has led to employees and supporters risking prosecution if they continue their activities.
Russia has intensified the hunt for dissenters in connection with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since the outbreak of the war, thousands of Russians have been imprisoned, including well-known critics of the regime Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin.
FACTS
Alexei Navalny
Originally best known as an anti-corruption activist. But over time, Alexei Navalny (born 1976) came to be seen as the leading opposition leader in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
He has been arrested and convicted repeatedly and has been barred from running in general elections.
In August 2020, Navalny fell seriously ill during a flight from Tomsk in Siberia. After being treated in a hospital in Germany, where it was confirmed that he had been poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, he returned to Russia on January 17, 2021.
He was immediately arrested at the airport and has since been convicted and imprisoned in what is widely regarded as a politically orchestrated process.
