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alexei navalny
Russia's Putin Secures Another Term
The controversial leader won a record number of votes for a post-Soviet candidate even as opponents organized a protest at noon on the election's third and last day.
Mar 17, 2024
Despite protests on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin won reelection with more votes than any candidate since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Exit poll the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) put the final tally after three days of voting at 87.8%, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) at 87%, and Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) at 87.3%. Putin will now serve another six-year term, meaning he will have been at the helm of the Russian state for longer than any leader since Catherine the Great, surpassing Josef Stalin.
The election comes less than a month after the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and is likely to lead to more tensions between the Russian and U.S. governments.
"It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia."
"For a U.S. administration that hoped Putin's Ukraine adventure would be wrapped up by now with a decisive setback to Moscow's interests, the election is a reminder that Putin expects that there will be many more rounds in the geopolitical boxing ring," Nikolas Gvosdev, director of the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the Russia Matters project.
With most of Putin's prominent opponents either dead, imprisoned, or in exile, the elections results were considered a foregone conclusion by both friends and foes of his administration.
A Putin spokesperson said in 2023 that the election was "not really democracy" but instead "costly bureaucracy," according to CNN. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the election was "obviously not free nor fair."
However, Russian opponents of Putin did find a way to demonstrate their position with a protest called "Noon Against Putin." The protest was called for by St. Petersburg politician Maxim Reznik, according to The Guardian. Participants were instructed to head to a polling place at noon and cast a paper ballot for one of the candidates running against Putin, or to write-in another candidate or spoil their ballot.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had endorsed the protest before his death last month in a Russian prison, leading the Independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper to dub it "Navalny's political testament."
The action drew crowds to polling places both in Russian cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg and at Russian embassies around the world.
"This is the first time in my life I have ever seen a queue for elections," one woman waiting in line in Moscow told
CNN. Russian journalists reported that the lines at some stations within the country reached the thousands, according to Reuters.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who had also endorsed the protest, voted at the embassy in Berlin, while several protesters gathered outside the embassy in London.
"I expected there to be a lot of people, but not this many," London-based participant Maria Dorofeyeva told The Guardian, adding, "It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia. And we want to stop it."
Ruslan Shaveddinov of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation told Reuters:
"We showed ourselves, all of Russia and the whole world that Putin is not Russia (and) that Putin has seized power in Russia."
"Our victory is that we, the people, defeated fear, we defeated solitude—many people saw they were not alone," Shaveddinov said
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From Assange to Navalny, Powerful Nations Show Their Contempt for Press Freedoms
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy.
Feb 25, 2024
In the late evening of February 16, I was standing on the other side of the iron fence that surrounds the imposing white building of the Russian embassy in The Hague. Abundantly illuminated by the spotlights, the house resembles an expensive film set that has been abandoned for the night.
But the last people who arrived with flowers that night did not look like fans waiting for movie stars. They were silent mourners paying their respects to a person they held in high esteem. The flowers were for Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died that morning thousands of kilometers away, in the Arctic Circle.
In the Hague, the spotlights shone brightly on the golden double-headed eagle on the Russian embassy’s facade. Since the Bronze Age, the double-headed eagle has symbolized power. Used by the mighty Byzantine dynasty, the eagle is the oldest royal emblem representing both physical and spiritual power. The eagle has survived up to our times, even in countries without royal families. Russia abandoned its royal eagle following the 1917 revolution but resurrected its glory in 1993. The double-headed eagle on the Russian flag sports a red shield depicting a horseman slaying a black dragon.
Alexei Navalny challenged the Russian political system and lost his life. Julian Assange believed that the public has every right to know what their democratically elected representatives and their armies are doing. For now, he has lost his freedom and health.
On the western shores of Europe lies Belmarsh prison, which is known as Britain’s Guantanamo because of its torturous conditions as well as its population of mostly alleged murderers and terrorists. Near it and in front of the High Court in London, another group of people gathered four days after Navalny’s death, in the hopes that they could stop an extradition and stand up for press freedom. Too unwell to appear in court, Julian Assange was waiting for the decision in his cell. As expected, the judges decided to announce their verdict at some later date. It remains to be seen if Assange will be put on a plane to America, where he could face up to 175 years in prison.
On the American emblem, the eagle has a single head, like any normal bird of prey. Its only shield is a flag, not a mighty horseman with a sword. It carries 13 arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right talon, which denote the power of peace and war. The one-headed eagle eagerly awaits Assange. At most of the demonstrations against his extradition around the world, protesters have held up a photograph of his face with the lower part covered by the American flag, similar to the one on the breast of the emblematic eagle.
People formulate laws and can change them. The Russian administration is demonstrating great flexibility in introducing new laws that further limit freedom of expression and all other actions that the state doesn’t approve of. Those who would like to democratize the system do not stand a chance. On the other hand, Western countries are unreasonably slow in widening the scope of freedom by changing laws that are too rigid, overly general, or simply unjust. If the rule of law cannot be improved, then what is the sense of law in the ever-changing world?
Alexei Navalny challenged the Russian political system and lost his life. Julian Assange believed that the public has every right to know what their democratically elected representatives and their armies are doing. For now, he has lost his freedom and health. The authenticity of the thousands of confidential documents revealed through WikiLeaks has never been questioned. By revealing them, Assange allegedly broke the law, the Espionage Act of 1917. Since 1919, beginning with Schenck v. United States, the constitutionality of that law and its relationship to free speech have been contested in the courts multiple times. As Karen Sharpe writes in Counterpunch:
The Espionage Act, under which a journalist or publisher has heretofore never been prosecuted, was designed, as its name suggests, to prosecute those Americans working to undermine the U.S. war efforts by delivering national defense information to the enemy. Not only is Julian not an American citizen, and he was in Europe when he was publishing WikiLeaks, but the “enemy” to whom he was meant to have supplied classified information—information in the public interest—must ipso facto be any member of the general public anywhere in the world!
The same law can be used to hide atrocities and war crimes behind a wall of secrecy that protects guilty. None of those linked to the atrocities identified in the Wikileaks documents have been prosecuted. Only Assange is behind bars. In the United States, he is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. As Christophe Deloire and Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Without Borders put it:
Of course, Assange should not be in prison anywhere – not in the UK, nor the US, nor Australia… No one, anywhere, should be targeted for publishing information in the public interest. Assange should be immediately released – perhaps through a political solution if not the courts, given the political nature of the case against him.
In some cases, secrets must be respected and confidentiality is in order. But when crimes are committed, they must be revealed and not hidden, which is the purpose of any legal system. The only reasonable question is: are the laws that protect crimes acceptable or not in a democratic society? If they’re not acceptable, then Assange is a victim and not a culprit. As one of the posters held by a protester in London stressed: “Justice is locking up war criminals, not shooting the messenger!”
The two brave men are the martyrs of very different political realities and imperfect legal systems. Navalny fought for the freedom of his country, Assange for the transparency, freedom of information and press. One way or another, Navalny received the death penalty, delivered by the horseman shielded by two-headed eagle. Assange must wait in Belmarsh prison for the decision on his fate.
There is a clear and striking difference in the response of world leaders concerning these two men. In the case of Navalny, besides his supporters in Russia and around the world, politicians of the West are unanimously voicing their consternation. With indignation, trembling voices, and outrage, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Jens Stoltenberg, Ursula von der Leyen, and Mark Rutte, as well as Rishi Sunak, David Cameron, and many others are condemning the autocratic and murderous Russian regime and Vladimir Putin’s brutality. They are eager to demonize their proven enemy one more time.
In the case of Assange, the most vocal dissenters are Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists, DiEM25, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and recently the Australian government. In the United Kingdom, where the proceedings are taking place, there was no major political pressure to block the extradition. Only a handful of British parliamentarians signed a petition calling for Assange’s release.
As for world leaders, they are mostly staying silent. Some, however, are not. Those calling on the UK government to block extradition include Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Argentina Alberto Fernández, former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero, and some former heads of state from Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. A free press can be a serious inconvenience. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy. The will to power prevents Western democracies from improving their laws and strengthening the pursuit of democracy and freedom. It would be surprising and welcome if some of them manage to radically change their attitudes and behaviors.
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Amnesty Condemns Russian Government Attacks on Those Mourning Alexei Navalny
"These callous acts are not only shockingly insensitive, but they are also a flagrant violation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly."
Feb 19, 2024
Amnesty International on Monday demanded that Russian authorities end their "widespread campaign of persecution" under which they've arrested nearly 400 people for mourning opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, whose death in prison was reported last Friday.
In at least 39 cities across Russia, police have arrested people for gathering at peaceful vigils to remember the anti-corruption political leader and steadfast opponent of President Vladimir Putin, laying flowers at monuments, and even carrying photographs of Navalny, in the case of Boris Kazadayev and Ilya Povyshev in Moscow.
The pair were arrested on Sunday in Moscow after police searched their backpacks near a memorial that had been set up for another late opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov. According to OVD-Info, police in Moscow searched selected attendees at Navalny memorials and "confiscated photographs of him as well as notes bearing his name."
"The crackdown we are witnessing following Aleksei Navalny's death in custody is not only a tragic reminder of what he fought against but also a clear indication that the Russian authorities are aiming to erase his memory," said Oleg Kozlovsky, Russia researcher for Amnesty. "The removal of photos of Navalny and the swift dismantling of memorial events across the country, sometimes directly in front of mourners, reveals how the authorities are seeking to expunge his name from the history books."
Navalny's death was reported by Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service on Friday; he allegedly lost consciousness after taking a walk in the penal colony where he had been relocated in December. He had been imprisoned for three years after exposing government corruption and organizing anti-Kremlin protests. He was also convicted last year of "extremism," having established himself as Putin's top political foe.
At least 387 people have been arrested for mourning Navalny since Friday, according to the rights group, with more than 200 detained in Saint Petersburg "simply for gathering peacefully to pay respect to the politician." The city's courts have also placed at least 26 people in "administrative detention"—accusing them of disobeying police, violating "the established procedure for organizing or holding an assembly," and other alleged offenses.
"Those who are detaining people are afraid of any opinion that isn't connected to propaganda, to the pervading ideology," a woman who identified herself only as Lena toldThe New York Times on Monday as she paid tribute at the Solovetsky Stone in Moscow. "They are scared of Navalny in jail, they are scared of dead Navalny, they are scared of the people who bring flowers here to the stone."
Kozlovzky highlighted cases of violent arrests, including that of Bakyt Karypbaev, who was reportedly tortured at a police station in Surgut, "including being beaten and having a gun pointed at his head for laying flowers."
A priest named Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko also "had a stroke after police arrested him to halt his plan to hold a memorial service," said Kozlovsky.
"These are not isolated incidents, but part of a country-wide campaign to silence dissent and instil fear across the nation," said the researcher.
Along with a prompt independent investigation into Navalny's death, Amnesty International demanded that the Russian authorities stop their campaign against those paying tribute, "immediately release all those detained solely for mourning or protesting peacefully, and ensure accountability for the abuses perpetrated against them."
"The Russian authorities have resorted to arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force and unlawful detentions of people across the country who are just trying to mourn Aleksei Navalny," said Kozlovsky. "These callous acts are not only shockingly insensitive, but they are also a flagrant violation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly."
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