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northAfter the arrest of the Kremlin opponent Alexej Navalnyj, who has returned to Moscow, the pressure on Russia increases. Politicians from the EU, the United States and Germany called on the Russian authorities to release the 44-year-old man immediately. The human rights organization Amnesty International classified the prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin as a political prisoner of Russia.
Navalnyj was arrested Sunday night immediately after landing in Moscow. The Russian criminal system justified the arrest with violations of probation conditions in a previous criminal case. Therefore, Navalnyj was sent on a search. Until the court’s decision, he will remain in detention, he said. The trial is on January 29. The Kremlin critic was last in Germany for five months, where he recovered from the Novichok neurotoxin attack in Russia.
“The Russian authorities must accept Alexei Navalnyj’s rights and release him immediately,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Twitter. He called on the Russian authorities to “respect Navalny’s rights.” A “politicization” of the judiciary is unacceptable, Borrell says so. EU Council President Charles Michel and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) criticized the imprisonment as “unacceptable” and “illegal”. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also demanded the immediate release of Navalnyj. The arrest was “completely unacceptable,” said a statement from the three EU and NATO countries that border Russia. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to speak about the case at a press conference on Monday.
Navalnyj described the process against him as a political staging. “The truth is on my side,” he said. Navalnyj’s team speaks of further attempts to gag the prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin. They certified Putin of “panic” and “hysteria”. The Russian penal system now wants to convert Navalnyj’s suspended sentence into a real prison sentence.
Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanowaja said that the power apparatus in Moscow no longer acts according to political logic. This approach would not only grant Navalnyj hero status, it would also increase the potential for protest. But the secret services and the security organs did not care. You see Navalnyj as a criminal.
Russian lawyers also pointed out that Russia violated international law with the procedure. Navalnyj had blamed Putin and the FSB national secret service for the attack on him. Putin and the FSB reject that.
