Alexei Navalny threatened the Kremlin by creating a network of political offices
Moscow:
Russia on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny against a court decision to lock him up for 19 years in a high-security prison on charges of extremism.
The First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction ruled last month that the Moscow court upheld the decision, Judge Viktor Rogov announced.
Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, organized huge anti-government demonstrations before being jailed in 2021 on fraud charges that his allies at home and abroad say are punishing.
In August, a court at his prison outside Moscow handed him a 19-year prison sentence on charges of setting up an organization that undermined public security by carrying out “extremist activities.”
The 47-year-old trained lawyer threatened the Kremlin by setting up a network of political offices across the country and a corruption watchdog that brought forward credible allegations against political elites.
He was jailed in 2021 after arriving in Moscow from Germany, where he was recovering from a poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-designed nerve agent, which he blamed on the Kremlin.
Last month’s ruling came a year and a half after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which brought an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices.
“You are being forced to surrender your Russia without a fight to a gang of traitors, thieves and villains who have seized power. Do not lose the will to resist,” Navalny said in a statement.
Solitary confinement
Navalny, who has complained of a series of health complications and embarked on a weeks-long hunger strike, communicates with the outside world through his lawyers.
Since sending troops to Ukraine last year, the Kremlin has repeatedly spoken out against the offensive.
Russia has arrested thousands of people, including high-profile political activists, for speaking out against the conflict and highlighting alleged Russian military atrocities.
Navalny is being held in the high-security IK-6 penal colony, 250 kilometers east of Moscow.
But the court ruled in August that Navalny should be sent to a “special regime” colony, a maximum security facility reserved for dangerous criminals that will virtually cut him off from the outside world.
Campaigners say Russia’s prisons have not changed significantly since the Soviet era.
Navalny usually appears at court hearings via grainy video links in prison uniforms that look considerably thinner than when he addressed thousands of supporters at rallies across Russia.
He spends much of his time in prison in the so-called “punishment cell”.
Navalny remains a marginal figure to many in Russia, who support the Kremlin’s official portrayal of him as a Western stooge and convicted criminal.
Most of its allies have been forced into exile since Russia launched its Ukraine offensive last February. Many of those who remain have been tried or are in prison.
Lilia Chanysheva, Navalny’s ally in the central republic of Bashkortostan, was jailed for seven and a half years this summer.
Another ally in the Siberian city of Tomsk, Ksenia Fadeyeva, is currently on trial, accused of setting up an extremist organization.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
