Navalny’s death chillingly reminds Russia’s political prisoners of risks

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MOSCOW — For the hundreds of political prisoners in Russia’s ruthless penitentiary system, word of the death of the nation’s most famous incarcerated objector, Alexei Navalny, took days to get here — and lugged a distressing, if evident, suggestion: None of them are risk-free.

News of Navalny’s abrupt death on Feb. 16 in an Arctic chastening nest, was hardly distributed on state television and radio networks, generally the only resource of info for prisoners. Letters from outdoors typically take days, in some cases weeks, to travel through censors.

“For the first time, I am glad that the news took a while to get here. It would have been better if it didn’t come at all,” stated Andrei Pivovarov, a Russian resistance protestor that is offering a four-year sentence in Karelia in north Russia after being apprehended in 2021 on costs of benefiting an “undesirable organization.”

“This is no longer another step toward the abyss,” Pivovarov stated, “but a flight into it, an acceleration.”

Since the February 2022 intrusion of Ukraine, the Russian federal government has actually broken down mercilessly on political challengers and doubters of the battle, motivating lots of to get away right into expatriation and sweeping others right into jail, usually with exceptionally lengthy sentences. Some were close partners of Navalny, like Vladimir Kara-Murza, a freedom supporter and Washington Post Opinions factor, that was punished in 2015 to 25 years for treason.

Human legal rights team Memorial has actually identified greater than 600 individuals in Russia as political prisoners, that includes greater than 400 maltreated for their religious beliefs. According to OVD-Info, a guard dog which tracks apprehensions and apprehension, greater than 1,000 individuals have actually been sent to prison in Russia on politically inspired costs. All are currently in the clutches of a regimen that has actually revealed no agitations regarding removing its regarded opponents.

Ilya Yashin, an expert resistance protestor and long time partner of Navalny’s start in the very early 2000s when they were participants of the dynamic Yabloko political celebration, discovered of his buddy’s abrupt death on Monday — 3 days after it happened — from his attorney that saw him.

“Tell me this isn’t true,” Yashin, in shock, at first begged with the attorney, Mikhail Biryukov.

Biden satisfies widow and little girl as Russia states Navalny passed away of ‘natural causes’

In 2022, Yashin was punished to 8 years for releasing records regarding wrongs by the Russian army in Bucha, Ukraine.

In a follow-up letter, Yashin created that “the pain and horror are unbearable.” He contrasted Navalny’s death keeping that of Boris Nemtsov, the resistance leader that was fired and eliminated near the Kremlin in 2015. Yashin likewise recognized the actual threat he deals with daily he continues to be sent to prison.

“Now both my friends are dead. I feel a black emptiness inside,” Yashin created. “And, of course, I understand my own risks. I am behind bars, my life is in Putin’s hands, and it’s in danger.”

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, his group and partners, have actually implicated Russian President Vladimir Putin straight of having him killed. President Biden and various other leaders have actually stated they hold Putin “responsible.”

Local authorities, nonetheless, stated Navalny passed away of “natural causes” and have actually declined to launch Navalny’s body to his mom, sustaining allegations of a coverup. Lyudmila Navalnaya stated Thursday that Russian authorities were attempting to “blackmail” her right into holding a personal funeral service for her kid, and they endangered to allow his body break down if she declined.

Prison problems in Russia are infamously negative, and legal rights teams have actually recorded prevalent usage of torment.

Navalny’s household, his political group and Russian reporters reporting on the jail system, stated that jail authorities had actually purposely developed “unbearable” problems for Navalny given that his apprehension in January 2021, when he went back to Moscow from Germany where he was dealt with after being infected by Russian protection representatives.

In all, Navalny invested 295 days in a penalty cell — with authorities usually insisting that he breached small jail policies. Inmates are not intended to invest greater than 15 days in such rough arrest, and the European Court of Human Rights has actually identified repeat positioning in penalty cells as torment.

Navalny’s health and wellness was harmed by the poisoning strike, in which a military-grade nerve representative was tied in his undergarments. He invested weeks in a coma and needed to relearn just how to stroll and consume. After being incarcerated, his health and wellness remained to degrade, his household and legal representatives stated. In the years given that, his group advertised numerous health and wellness terrifies and duplicated rejection of therapy.

For lots of young Russians, fantasizes of freedom passed away with Alexei Navalny

Maxim Litavrin, a reporter for Mediazona, an independent Russian electrical outlet covering Russia’s jail system, defined problems of a penalty cell as “terrible.” “We don’t know what killed Alexei Navalny, and we won’t find out until an independent examination,” Litavrin stated, “but putting a person in such conditions for almost a year is murder.”

As for basic healthcare in Russian jails, Litavrin stated: “There is practically no medicine.”

Inmates typically have accessibility just to disinfectant and non-prescription pain relievers — advil if they are fortunate. Prison clinical personnel are improperly paid and usually improperly certified.

“Complex diseases in colonies are not treated at all,” Litavrin stated. Over the years, he included, the European Court of Human Right has actually been swamped with suits by family members of prisoners that passed away in Russian nests because of absence of treatment.

A day prior to Navalny’s death, Ivan Zyryanov, a 43-year-old detainee in the Trans-Baikal area, needed to be lugged right into a court hearing after his legs quit working — partly because of the absence of ample healthcare.

Alexei Gorinov, 62, a previous neighborhood lawmaker in Moscow, was punished in July 2022 to 7 years for knocking the battle in Ukraine. Gorinov experiences a persistent illness, is missing out on component of a lung and has actually been positioned in a penalty cell a minimum of 5 times, his legal representatives stated.

The legal representatives stated that he experiences high temperatures and respiratory disease, however jail authorities are rejecting him accessibility to a clinical system.

U.S. targets Russian oligarchs as it evaluates reaction to Navalny’s death

After Navalny’s death, households of political prisoners stated they are extra scared than ever before.

“It’s a lot scarier now,” stated Tatiana Balazeikina, whose kid, Yegor Balazeikin, 17, is offering 6 years for terrorism after tossing a bomb at an armed forces enrollment workplace in 2015 to oppose the battle.

“We understand that if they didn’t save a well-known figure like Navalny, then as for a bunch of convicts that the world doesn’t really know about — no one will take care of them at all,” Balazeikina stated.

Balazeikin experiences a complicated autoimmune illness, his mom stated, and according to the policies of the adolescent apprehension facility, his moms and dads can give medication and take him for independent exams. But Balazeikina stated that after a physician’s browse through in August, her kid was recommended a therapy for abscess, which he was never ever provided. Last week, a physician stated the abscess had actually intensified.

“For people who are in prison, the responsibility lies with the state for their health and for their lives,” Balazeikina stated. “Neither parents, nor lawyers, nor any other relatives can control a person’s stay behind bars in any way.” She stated she frets regularly for her kid.

“If a person dies in prison, it doesn’t matter for what reasons,” Balazeikina stated, “then only the state is to blame.”

Alexandra Popova, 30, a civils rights protestor and better half of sent to prison poet Artyom Kamardin — that late in 2015 was punished to 7 years for public analyses of antiwar verse — talked of the discomfort of understanding there is absolutely nothing she can do to ensure his security

“Alexei Anatolyevich’s death showed that it’s true that no one is safe,” she stated, describing Navalny professionally by his patronymic. “All the people who are currently in custody in pretrial detention centers and colonies — they’re closer to death than life. And every … healthy body has its limits. If things are constantly thrown at a person, they lose their will to live.”

On Monday night in main Moscow, Veronika, 42, an illustrator from the Russian resources, came close to the Solovetsky Stone, a memorial for targets of the gulag, and positioned a number of scarlet carnations in the middle of the snow, in memory of Navalny.

“It is clear that he died in agony — and this terrifies me,” Veronika stated. “I know that there are a lot of other political prisoners now who are also being slowly killed in prison. And I understand that our flowers are not really going to help them.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/23/navalny-political-prisoners-russia-fear/

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