On February 24, 2022, the Russian military invaded Ukraine by order of Vladimir Putin. Since then, protests against the war have not stopped inside Russia. Russians demand an end to the military invasion of Ukraine and peace between two countries. In response, the government has brutally suppressed protests, and attempted to intimidate people with new draconian laws. 

Arrests at Protests. The human rights media outlet OVD-Info estimates that by March 7, 2022 over 13,500 people had been detained at anti-war rallies in Russia. Human rights activists say that this is more than at the rally in support of Alexei Navalny that took place in January 2021. 

Detentions at the March 6 rallies were among the largest and most brutal since the anti-war campaign began. Over 5000 people were detained in 56 Russian cities; some of the detainees were physically assaulted, dragged by the hair, doused with water and antiseptic and tasered. The “Protest Apology” project recorded more than 30 complaints about the unjustified use of force and special means by officers of the MVD and Rosgvardiya.

In many cities, plain-clothed law enforcement officers detained protesters and took them to police vans. They often used excessive force. The anonymity created conditions for abuse of power and helped avoid criminal responsibility.

In Novosibirsk, a woman detained at the rally said that she was beaten by the police (she was taken out of the Tsentralny department by paramedics and her leg was injured). At the metro stop “Ploshchad Revolutsii” in Moscow, riot police pinned a man on the floor, pressed him with knees and hit him several times in the head with fists. At Moscow’s Lubyanka Square, police officers demanded to check passersby’s cell phone contents — they threatened arrest in case of refusal.

Detainees at anti-war rallies in various cities say that in police stations they have their cell phones taken away and not allowed to contact lawyers. At Moscow’s Brateevo police station at least three detained girls were beaten by police. They were doused with water and hit on their faces and bodies. “We were beaten on the legs, on the head. They poured water over us. They ripped off the mask, ripped the phone out of hands and threw it against the wall twice. At the end, they picked up the phone, wiped off the fingerprints. They grabbed me by the hair and pulled me around. They yelled at me. There were two girls in the office and they just watched the torture,” said 26-year-old Muscovite Alexandra Kaluzhskikh. In the recording she made, one of the officers can be heard threatening to torture the girl with electric shocks. “Putin is on our side. You are the enemies of Russia, you are the enemies of the people ***** [f**k you]. You’ll ******** [be beaten] here and that’s it. We’ll get a bonus for this,” says the policeman.

Protest participants are charged with violation of the rules of participation in the action (Part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code), repeat violation of the rules of participation in the action (Part 8 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code), organization or conduct of an action (Part 2 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code), disobedience to a legal requirement of the police (Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code), public actions, aimed at “discrediting the use of the armed forces” (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code).

All detainees face fines from 2 thousand to 300 thousand rubles and arrest up to 30 days.

New Draconian Laws. On March 4, 2022, the Russian State Duma convened for an emergency plenary session. Among other things, the deputies adopted in the second and third readings a bill on amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code. The initiatives introduced punishment for disseminating “knowingly false information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces” and “for discrediting the use of the Russian forces”. In order for these changes to enter into force as quickly as possible, they were carried out under an accelerated procedure.

According to the text of the law, the crime without aggravating circumstances involves a fine of up to 1.5 million rubles and imprisonment of up to three years. If “official position” was used in spreading “fakes,” there was a “mercenary motive” or a motive of “political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred,” the person faces a fine of up to five million rubles or five to 10 years in prison. If the distribution of “fakes” led to serious consequences, the case could lead to imprisonment for 10 to 15 years.

What does “discrediting the use of the armed forces” mean? It is “public actions aimed at discrediting the use” of the Russian army, including public calls to prevent its use. Whether this will mean, for example, participation in an anti-war rally, it is not yet clear, but it is very likely.

The Kremlin is hiding the true cost of war from its people.  Ukrainian presidential office reported more than 12,000 dead Russian soldiers, while the Russian Defense Ministry does not confirm these figures. During the first week since the start of the war, it never published data on casualties, and on March 2, it named the losses of the Russian army in Ukraine for the first time. According to the ministry, 498 soldiers were killed and 1,597 wounded during the hostilities. This data has not been updated since then. At the same time, in all publications of government agencies and pro-Kremlin media, it is forbidden to call this conflict the word “war”: only the term “special military operation” is used.

It is also still unclear which soldiers are involved in the operation. Russian authorities claim that only contract soldiers have been sent to the war. The Ukrainian side regularly reports about dozens and even hundreds of captured Russian soldiers, many of whom are not contract soldiers, but regular conscripts.

This is indirectly confirmed by evidence that in mid-February, the parents of soldiers serving in military units in various parts of Russia began to contact the Russian Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. They all reported the same thing: their sons were either forced to urgently sign a contract or sent to military units located near the border with Ukraine. According to the law, if an enlisted man is ready to go to war under contract, he can sign it one month after the start of military service, but in practice the contracts were signed under pressure, the soldiers’ relatives claim.

The Russian Defense Ministry also does not tell mothers where and how to find their sons. Behind the impersonal figure of 498 people are the tragedies of specific families who, as if they had been instructed in advance, are told “this is a fake,” even when relatives bring in pictures and videos of their loved ones in captivity. There are cases when mothers of killed Russian soldiers receive a death notification, but the military unit keeps claiming that the soldier is in training. “We have no such information,” this phrase has become the universal answer of any officials and military the mothers. 

News about the victims can only be learned from reports by regional authorities or from posts of condolence published by their friends and relatives. It was the same during the war in Donbass in 2014-2015, and it was the same during the Syrian campaign. 

By March 7, 2022, according to data of human rights project “Network Freedoms”, 60 people had been detained under the new law in 16 Russian cities: St. Petersburg, Kostroma, Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Novorossiysk, Orel, Taganrog, Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Elista, Vladivostok, Yaroslavl, Kemerovo, Anapa, Simferopol.

Some of the detainees are also facing charges for participating in an unauthorized rally (Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code) and violating the law on “fakes” (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). Seven of them have already been fined between 30 and 60 thousand rubles, reports “Network Freedoms.”

NGS42 reported that on March 6, 2022,  a resident of Kemerovo was fined 60 thousand rubles for calling for an anti-war rally. On the same day, a fine of 30 thousand rubles was imposed on Irina Shumilova, a resident of Kostroma, who staged a solitary picket with a poster “This war is a special operation on your taxes, and we fundraise for the medical treatment of children by SMS-messages”. According to “Network Freedoms”, no linguistic expertise was conducted in Shumilova’s case, and the police officer making the arrest said that he detected an appeal to protest in the fact that the words “war” and “special operation” were highlighted on the poster.

Another resident of Kostroma region, priest Ioann Burdin, head of the Church of the Resurrection in the village of Karabanovo, was also detained. He was charged with anti-war preaching and publishing a link to the “No to War” petition on Change.org on the parish website. “Burdin V.V., being in a public place, in the premises of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, during his religious service in the presence of about 10 worshipers committed public actions aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which conduct a special operation on the basis of the decision of the President and the resolution of the Federation Council of the RF Federal Assembly”, — said the protocol according to «Mediazone» media outlet.

Vera Kotova, a resident of Krasnoyarsk, was fined 30 thousand rubles. She was tried for writing “No to War” on the snow. The police report states that she “wrote on the snow by removing the snow cover from the granite base of the monument to Lenin: “No to War.”

The Russian State Goes After Children. On March 3, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Education held an all-Russian open lesson, “Defenders of Peace,” at which schoolchildren were lectured on “why the liberation mission in Ukraine is a necessity.” Shortly before that, principals of educational institutions across Russia directed teachers to hold daily class hours dedicated to the war in Ukraine and relations between the two countries — and sent them teaching guides that referred to the war as a “special operation.”

On March 7, 2022, it was reported that in Moscow, police came to the home of sixth-grader Kirill (surname withheld at the request of his mother) after a history lesson where the war with Ukraine was discussed, and the boy was asking questions. Kirill and his mother Natalia told “Novaya Gazeta” about it.

The lesson, where the teacher decided to discuss the Russian “special operation”, took place on March 4. According to Kirill, not only he, but a few of his classmates asked questions about the war. The consequences for them are not reported.

Among other things, Kirill asked why Putin started a war in Ukraine. To which the teacher said that it was a “special operation.” When asked how to get the government to agree to a rally against the actions of the government itself, she, according to the schoolboy, “did not give a clear answer”.

After class Kirill shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” in the hallway and was supported by other kids, the boy told reporters.

According to the mother of the schoolboy, after the class, she received a call from an unknown number and was invited to the police department for a conversation about her son. Kirill’s class master invited her to school for a meeting with the juvenile affairs inspectorate. Natalya did not show up for the conversation and took her son out of school.

On March 7, when Kirill was alone in the apartment, two police officers came to the schoolboy’s home. The boy did not open the door, so the police turned off the electricity in the apartment and left, leaving a “summons for questioning” under the door.

There is also another scandalous story involving children. On March 2, 2022 in Moscow police detained two women and five of their children, aged seven to 11, who had come to lay flowers at the Ukrainian Embassy. The detainees were first held in a police truck, then brought to the Presnenskoe police station.The authorities first wanted to keep the parents and their children overnight at the police station, but later they let them go.  A trial and fines are ahead, and the parents are afraid — the police officers shouted at them, threatening to deprive them of their parental rights.

Internet and Social Media Blockade. On March 2, Roskomnadzor blocked the websites of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and Border Guard Service and several dozen Ukrainian media outlets in Russia, including TCN channel, Segodnya, Zaxid, Ukrinform, Censor.net, Vesti.ua, Depo.ua and Delo.ua, among others.

By March 4, Roskomnadzor had blocked 16 media outlets in Russia: Meduza, BBC Russian Service, Deutsche Welle, Current Time, The New Times, The Village, DOXA, Taiga.info, Dozhd, Echo Moskvy, TV2, Radio Liberty, and six related projects: “Idel.Realii,” “Siberia.Realii,” “Sever.Realii” and “Radio Azatlyk.”

On March 6, it became known about the blocking of the media outlets Mediazone and Republic, as well as websites of Snob, Sobesednik, Agent, 7×7, Ekho Moskvy in Chelyabinsk, and Ekho Kavkaza.

Before that, Roskomnadzor issued a statement in which it demanded that the media should write about the war in Ukraine, relying only on official Russian sources, otherwise the agency threatened to block them and impose fines of up to five million rubles. The Krasnoyarsk-based media outlet Prospekt Mira, and Echo Moskvy, InoSMI, Mediazona, The New Times, Dozhd, Svobodnaya Pressa, Krym.Realii, Novaya Gazeta, Zhurnalist, and Lenizdat immediately received cautions from the agency.

After Russia passed a law on criminal liability for “fakes” about the actions of the Russian army, a number of media outlets announced that they had stopped working (in particular, Znak.com) or refused to write about the war (in particular, Novaya Gazeta and Snob).

Roskomnadzor also restricted Russians’ access to Facebook and Twitter.

Blocked media outlets, however, continue to operate and many Russians keep reading them using anti-blocking tools, such as VPN clients or plug-ins. In addition, the Tor browser in traffic obfuscation mode is used to bypass blocking. Telegram news channels are extremely popular: the number of subscribers of some of them has exceeded one million these days.

Washington, D.C. April 12, 2024 — In a joint effort, Free Russia Foundation (FRF), Human Rights Foundation (HRF), McCain Institute, and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) are intensifying calls for the designation of an esteemed Russian pro-democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The four prominent human rights organizations submitted a comprehensive 26-page petition to the U.S. Department of State, invoking the 2020 Robert Levinson Act. This request urges the designation of Mr. Kara-Murza as wrongfully detained and advocates for the transfer of his case to the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs.

In a joint statement, representatives from FRF, HRF, McCain Institute, and RWCHR emphasized Kara-Murza’s status as a U.S. Permanent Resident, which falls under the protection of the 2020 Robert Levinson Act.

“His detention meets all 11 factors enumerated in the Act: Kara-Murza is innocent, is detained for exercising his freedom of assembly, is detained in a country without an independent and impartial judicial system, and is being detained in inhumane conditions, to mention a few. And most importantly, U.S. diplomatic engagement is necessary to secure his release,”  Irwin Cotler, Venla Stang, Natalia Arno, Pedro Pizano, Brandon Silver, Mutasim Ali, and Polina Sidelnikova of the petitioner organizations asserted in a joint statement summarizing their legal analysis.

Amidst escalating repression and in the wake of Alexei Navalny’s tragic murder, Vladimir Kara-Murza stands as the Kremlin’s foremost target in its relentless assault on dissent. Vladimir’s plight epitomizes the chilling reality faced by hundreds of political prisoners and thousands of those facing direct repressions in Russia today.

As the Russian regime intensifies its crackdown on dissent, and with Vladimir Kara-Murza’s health in a perilous state, FRF, HRF, McCain Institute, and RWCHR implore the U.S. State Department to swiftly invoke the Levinson Act in his case and pursue all available avenues to secure his release and safe return.

For the full petition submitted to the U.S. Department of State under the 2020 Robert Levinson Act, please follow this link: https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VKM-Statement-of-Facts-and-Levinson-Analysis.pdf

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian pro-democracy activist, historian, journalist, and television host, remains a prominent figure under Putin’s oppressive regime, recognized globally as both a political prisoner and a prisoner of conscience. As a close associate of the late Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Mr. Kara-Murza played an essential role in the advocacy leading to the enactment of the Magnitsky legislation. This landmark legislation imposed targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators across various countries. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) hailed Mr. Kara-Murza as “one of the most passionate and effective advocates for the passage of the Magnitsky Act,” while Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) lauded him as “a courageous advocate for the democratic process and fundamental universal human rights.”

Mr. Kara-Murza has faced life-threatening situations on two occasions. He survived assassination attempts in 2015 and 2017, both through poisoning with state-controlled chemical warfare agents, which left him in critical condition. Despite these perilous circumstances, Mr. Kara-Murza persisted in his pursuit of liberty. His exceptional contributions to the cause of human rights and democracy have been recognized through numerous prestigious awards, including the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award.

Mr. Kara-Murza has been unjustly incarcerated in Russia since April 2022, facing a barrage of trumped-up charges. Initially accused of disseminating false information about the Russian military, he was subsequently charged with participating in activities deemed “undesirable” by the state and ultimately accused of high treason for daring to criticize the Russian authorities on the international stage, which was initiated after his speech at the Arizona State House of Representatives in the United States where he referred to the bombing of residential areas and social infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.

Following a sham trial, on April 17, 2023, Mr. Kara-Murza was sentenced to an egregious 25 years in prison by the Moscow City Court. This is the maximum possible sentence for the charges and the longest sentence imposed on an opposition figure in recent years.

On June 13, 2023, the Senate of Canada bestowed honorary Canadian citizenship upon Vladimir Kara-Murza, placing him in esteemed company alongside human rights icons like Raoul Wallenberg and Nelson Mandela. Presently confined to solitary confinement in Siberia’s IK-7 penal colony, Mr. Kara-Murza’s health is deteriorating rapidly. Denied access to necessary medical care for his polyneuropathy, a condition stemming from the earlier poisoning attempts by the Kremlin, experts fear for his survival under the current conditions.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration. As we all mourn the loss of Russian democratic opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in Russian custody while unjustly incarcerated on February 16, 2024, we request that you accelerate your efforts to release imprisoned Russian prodemocracy advocate Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza is an extremely vulnerable prisoner, and we fear that he may be the Kremlin’s next victim if the United States does not act swiftly.

Kara-Murza is a US lawful permanent resident (which the Levinson Act defines as a US national), a historian and Washington Post opinion writer, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, a deeply principled man, and a passionate advocate for political and civil rights in his native Russia. He is also currently being held as a political prisoner by Russian authorities. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kara-Murza chose to return to his country of origin in April 2022, saying that he must go back to stand with Russian antiwar protesters and against Putin. He was arrested just days after his return to Moscow, and has remained in prison since. In April 2023, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, on bogus charges for his criticism of Putin’s corrupt and repressive government and the Kremlin’s ongoing, devastating war against Ukraine.

Kara-Murza’s health has rapidly deteriorated while in custody. His wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, has reported that he has lost more than 50 pounds in the last year and is facing paralysis in both of his feet due to untreated polyneuropathy—a condition brought on as a result of the poisonings carried out by Putin’s government in the 2015 and 2017 attempts on his life. He was kept in solitary confinement for several months and is being held in a maximum-security facility.

Many of our organizations have been assured that his release is a “high priority” by several members of your administration; as a concrete demonstration of this claim, we request that Kara-Murza:

1.     Be immediately designated “wrongfully detained” under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.

2.     Be included in any ongoing negotiations with Russia.

First, as a lawful permanent resident (LPR) with significant ties to the United States, Kara-Murza meets the legal criteria to be designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, and the US State Department should do so expeditiously. On August 14, 2023, the State Department confirmed that LPRs have been designated “wrongfully detained” under the act; Kara-Murza should be also. One notable example of a US LPR being designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act is Paul Rusesabagina of Rwanda, the famed “Hotel Rwanda” activist. Rusesabagina was designated “wrongfully detained” by the US government after his August 2020 flight to Burundi was redirected to Rwanda, where he was subsequently arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 25 years in prison in a sham trial.

Kara-Murza meets 10 of the 11 criteria in the law, which makes him readily eligible for the “wrongfully detained” designation. The law clearly states that designations can be made on criteria “which may include” the 11 enumerated provisions, but nowhere does it state that all 11 criteria must be met.

The Kremlin clearly considers Kara-Murza to be a high-value political prisoner, shown by virtue of the fact that he received the maximum possible sentence for the fabricated crimes pinned on him simply for his opposition to Putin and the Kremlin’s illegal war in Ukraine. For this, we want to stress that “wrongfully detained” designations may be private (as opposed to public). If the State Department considers a public designation to be too incendiary, a private designation is a suitable option.

Second, it is critical that Kara-Murza be included in any discussions with Russian officials regarding prisoner releases. As a US national, as defined under the Levinson Act, and a person who is seen by Putin as a significant prisoner, it is crucial for both Kara-Murza’s well-being and American foreign policy that he be released. We feel strongly that the United States has a clear obligation to prioritize the release of all unjustly detained American nationals, which includes citizens like Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Marc Fogel, as well as Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza is a hero who has courageously dedicated his life to advancing freedom and democracy. For his vision of a democratic and peaceful Russia, which is deeply in line with US strategic interests, he has suffered greatly at the hands of Putin and his cronies. Kara-Murza continues to sacrifice to defend the principles we hold so dear in the United States, and he is extremely vulnerable in prison.

The tragic death of Navalny underscores the risks political prisoners, especially high-profile ones, face in prison. We urge the Biden administration to act swiftly to bring Kara-Murza home and to increase efforts to seek the release of all Russian political prisoners.

Regards,

Individual Signatories:

• Michael J. Abramowitz, President, Freedom House
• Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
• Paige Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, the Carter Center; Vice Chair, Free Russia Foundation
• Natalia Arno, President, Free Russia Foundation
• John R. Beyrle, former US Ambassador to Russia and Bulgaria
• George C. Biddle, Trustee and Chairman, Civil Courage Prize
• Stephen E. Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State
• Michael Breen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Human Rights First
• Ellen Bork, Fellow, the George W. Bush Institute
• William Browder, President, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
• Agnès Callamard, PhD, Secretary General, Amnesty International
• Christian Caryl, Independent Journalist
• Michael Chertoff, former US Secretary of Homeland Security; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
• Honourable Professor Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ, AdE.; former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
• Uriel Epshtein, Chief Executive Officer, Renew Democracy Initiative
• Evelyn N. Farkas, PhD, Executive Director, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
• Jennifer Finney Boylan, Author
• Jane Harman, Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees; former Congresswoman from California
• Tirana Hassan, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
• John E. Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan; Senior Director, the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council
• Patrick Gaspard, President, Center for American Progress; former US Ambassador to South Africa
• Carl Gershman, Former and Founding President, National Endowment for Democracy
• Jon Huntsman Jr., former US Ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore; former Governor of Utah
• Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion; Russian opposition leader; Chairman, Renew Democracy Initiative
• Jonathan Katz, former Deputy Assistant Administrator, Europe and Eurasia Bureau, US Agency for International Development
• Ian Kelly, former US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to Georgia; Ambassador in Residence, Northwestern University
• Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder, the Russian Anti-War Committee
• Peter Kovler, member, National Democratic Institute Board of Trustees
• David J. Kramer, Executive Director, the George W. Bush Institute
• Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Author
• Leopoldo López, Freedom Activist; Cofounder and General Secretary, World Liberty Congress
• Tom Malinowski, former Congressman from New Jersey; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
• Félix Maradiaga, Nicaraguan opposition leader; President, Foundation for the Freedom of Nicaragua; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
• Michael A. McFaul, former US Ambassador to Russia
• Sarah E. Mendelson, former US Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council
• Alfred H. Moses, former US Ambassador to Romania
• Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, PEN America
• Steven Pifer, former US Ambassador to Ukraine
• Pedro Pizano, Assistant Director for Democracy Programs, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
• Alina Polyakova, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for European Policy Analysis
• Maria A. Ressa, Chief Executive Officer, Rappler; 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
• Randy Scheunemann, Strategic Counselor, Halifax International Security Forum
• Natan Sharansky, former political prisoner in the Soviet Union; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• John Shattuck, Professor of Practice in Diplomacy, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; former US Ambassador to the Czech Republic
• Brandon Silver, International Human Rights Lawyer; Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
• Gary Shteyngart, Author
• Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University
• John J. Sullivan, former US Ambassador to Russia; former US Deputy Secretary of State
• William B. Taylor Jr., former US Ambassador to Ukraine
• Daniel Treisman, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
• Daniel Twining, PhD, President, International Republican Institute
• Peter Van Praagh, President, Halifax International Security Forum
• Alexander Vershbow, former US Ambassador to Russia; former Deputy Secretary General, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• Melanne Verveer, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues; Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security
• Wendell L. Willkie II, former Associate Counsel to the President of the United States; former General Counsel, US Department of Commerce; Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees
• Damon Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Endowment for Democracy
• Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine

Organizational Endorsements:

• Civil Courage Prize
• Free Russia Foundation
• Freedom House
• The George W. Bush Institute
• Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
• Human Rights First
• Human Rights Foundation
• Human Rights Watch
• The McCain Institute
• National Democratic Institute
• National Endowment for Democracy
• PEN America
• Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
• Renew Democracy Initiative
• Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
• World Liberty Congress

cc:

The Honorable Antony J. Blinken
Secretary of State

US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Mr. Jake Sullivan
National Security Advisor

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Alexei Navalny’s death is a premeditated political assassination.

The personal responsibility for Navalny’s death lies with the man who usurped power and declared himself president of Russia. Navalny was murdered by Putin. This murder went on for years, every day, under the cover of lies and impunity. All these years, on Putin’s orders, he was persecuted, poisoned, imprisoned, and finally sent to a prison on the edge of Russia where he was held in torture-like conditions.

We offer our sincerest condolences to the family of Alexei Navalny — his wife Yulia, his children Daria and Zakhar, his brother Oleg, his mother Lyudmila Ivanovna, his father Anatoly Ivanovich, and all of Alexei’s family and friends. Your loss is immeasurable, and we stand united with each of you during this challenging time.

This isn’t merely a shock to us; it’s a deep and profound sorrow.

We call on world leaders, national governments, and international organizations to respond to this act of political terror.

The murderous regime in Russia represents a security threat to all citizens of the free world. It is in the interest of global security and the welfare of humanity to put an end to it.

Navalny’s murder was part of a tragic scenario against the backdrop of Russia’s dubious presidential “election”. Alexei Navalny, a leading critic of the Kremlin for years and a symbol of hope for change, had every chance of being elected as Russia’s legitimate president. This further emphasizes that Putin is an illegitimate usurper. Refusing to recognize him as the legitimate president now becomes not just a mandatory step, but a moral and political duty.

We demand justice for the memory of Alexei Navalny, for his family, and for all Russians who seek freedom. We will not stop until we achieve this goal. As long as tyranny and lawlessness persist, our work to defend human rights and promote democracy will continue.

Justice will prevail in Russia, and Navalny’s perpetrators will be punished.

Free Russia Foundation team.

Please join us for an in-person discussion on The Plight of the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners on Monday, October 30 from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm at the Victims of Communism Museum located at 900 15^th St NW in Washington, DC. The event will give a voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves and will include an interactive exhibit featuring photos and quotes of prominent political prisoners held by the Kremlin.

Space is limited, RSVP is required. The conversation is public and on-the record, members of the press are welcome.

The event will mark the International Day of Political Prisoners and feature substantive updates by:

• Sergei Davidis, Head of Political Prisoners Program, Memorial Human Rights Center;
• Evgenia Kara-Murza, Advocacy Director at Free Russia Foundation;
• Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on Russia;
• MEP Andrius Kubilius, the Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament;
• Karinna Moskalenko, Russia’s leading human rights lawyer, Founder of the Center de la Protection Internationale; and
• Vadim Prokhorov, lawyer for political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Expert presentations will be followed by an extensive Q&A session with the audience. The discussion will be moderated by Natalia Arno, President of Free Russia Foundation. To reserve your spot, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/743473939567?aff=oddtdtcreator

Speakers’ Bios:

Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He served as Prime Minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He was the leader of the conservative political party Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. Kubilius became a member of the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement, which favored separation from the Soviet Union. He later became the Executive Secretary of the Sąjūdis Council. Soon after the re-establishment of Lithuania’s independence, Kubilius was elected to the Seimas (parliament). Since then, Kubilius has been an active figure in Lithuanian politics. Kubillius is the current Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament.

Mariana Katzarova (Bulgaria) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Russian Federation by the UN Human Rights Council on April 4, 2023. Ms. Katzarova led the UN Human Rights Council’s mandated examination of the human rights situation in Belarus in 2021-22. During the first 2 years of the armed conflict in Ukraine (2014-16), she led the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission team in Donbas as head of the regional office in Eastern Ukraine. For a decade she headed the Amnesty International investigations of human rights in Russia and the two conflicts in Chechnya. Ms. Katzarova founded RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in War) in 2006 after working as a journalist and human rights investigator in the war zones of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. At RAW, she established the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award for women human rights defenders working in war and conflict zones. She was Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on combating human trafficking, and a senior advisor at the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Evgenia Kara-Murza is a Russian human rights activist and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, the twice-poisoned Russian opposition leader, imprisoned since April 11, 2022 for speaking out about the war on Ukraine. She worked as a translator and interpreter in Russian, English, and French for pro-democracy NGOs including the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, the Institute of Modern Russia, and Pen America. She subsequently joined her husband Vladimir at Free Russia Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan international organization supporting civil society and democratic development in Russia. Advocating for human rights accountability and promoting civil society and democratic change in Russia, she serves as FRF Advocacy Director.

Sergei Davidis is Head of Political Prisoners Support Program and Member of the Council at the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow, Russia. He was educated in Sociology at Moscow State University and on Law at Moscow State Law Academy. For many years, he was a participant and one of the organizers of the democratic opposition movement. His research interests are closely related to activities to support political prisoners in Russia, and he studies the sociological and legal aspects of politically motivated deprivation of liberty, in particular, in the context of world practice and international norms.

Karinna Moskalenko is Russia’s leading human rights lawyer. She was the first Russian lawyer to take a case to the European Court for Human Rights and won the first ever case against the Russian government at the court in Strasbourg. She founded the Center for International Protection in Russia in 1994. She is a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. While some of her clients are household names: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, Igor Sutyagin, Alexander Litvinenko to name a few, she has also represented countless victims of human rights abuses. She won more than 100 cases including AH & others v. Russian Federation where she was representing the rights of American families who were in the process of adopting children when Russia banned US adoptions with their so-called Dima Yakovlev law. Karinna moved her family to Strasbourg in 2006 where she founded the “Center de la Protection Internationale,” a human rights litigation NGO focused on litigating cases in international courts, which has filed and won more than 500 cases on behalf of its clients. For nine year, Karinna was a Commissioner for the International Commission for Jurists for which she is an Honorary member. Currently she is a head of the experts’ group, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council for the UN High Commissioner working on the UN mandated examination of human rights situation in Belarus. Vadim Prokhorov is a Russian human-rights lawyer who has defended critics of the Kremlin, including prominent opposition politicians and anti-corruption campaigners. He has defended many human rights activists, such as Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Vladimir Bukovsky. Prokhorov’s work as a lawyer has made him an important figure in the human rights field, as the Russian government has increasingly suppressed public dissent and oppositional work. This increase in governmental repression gravely impacted Prokhorov’s work, who has been representing human rights defender and opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza for the last ten years. Currently, Vadim Prokhorov continues his advocacy to protect the Russian opposition, political prisoners in Russian courts – online from abroad.

Free Russia Foundation, along with our staff, expresses our deep concern and indignation at the final verdict delivered today, July 28, 2023, by the Stavropol Court in the Russian city of Pyatigorsk, regarding the participants of the “Ingush Case.”

The verdict remains unchanged since December 2021 when Akhmed Barakhoev, Musa Malsagov, and Malsag Uzhakhov were each sentenced to 9 years in a general regime colony. Ismail Nalgiev, Bagaudin Khautiev, and Barakh Chemurziev received 8-year sentences each, while Zarifa Sautieva was sentenced to 7.5 years. They were all found guilty of using violence against representatives of the authorities, establishing an extremist group, and participating in its activities. 

The appeal trial lasted for over half a year, with the defense lawyers presenting their arguments for 12 days during the debates. In contrast, the prosecutor’s speech was remarkably brief, lasting only five minutes, where he simply read out the arguments from the objections, which were concise and fit on just a few sheets of paper.

This stands as one of the most significant political cases in Russian history. It all started on March 27, 2019, when a rally against the alteration of Ingushetia’s administrative border with the Chechen Republic in Magas led to a crackdown on the Ingush opposition. Consequently, administrative cases were initiated against hundreds of participants in the people’s protest, and dozens of them faced criminal charges.

The Memorial Center, an organization that monitors politically motivated cases, has officially designated all those convicted in the “Ingush Case” as political prisoners. According to Sergei Davidis, who serves as the co-chairman of the Memorial Center, this case stands out as one of the most unprecedented political cases in Russian history. He states, “Civil society leaders are being accused merely for being civil society leaders. There is no fabrication involved; instead, they are trying to twist perfectly legitimate actions into criminal acts.”

Free Russia Foundation shares the same perspective as Memorial and urges the international community to take notice of this blatant violation of human rights.

The verdict handed down to the participants in the “Ingush Case” is a true mockery of justice, primarily because the prosecution was unable to demonstrate that the oppositionists had actually formed an extremist group. Additionally, there was a failure to provide evidence of any criminal conspiracy to incite violence against law enforcement personnel. Throughout the indictment, words such as “probably,” “presumably,” and “maybe” were frequently employed, undermining the strength of the case. Notably, the word “approximately” was used more than ten thousand times

A few years back, Ingushetia demonstrated to the entire nation that it was possible to conduct multi-day protests with thousands of people in a peaceful manner, without jeopardizing law and order. However, the Kremlin viewed this as a display of free thinking that clashed with the current regime’s control, leading them to take punitive action against the organizers of the peaceful protest. This move was intended to send a warning to residents of other regions in Russia, showcasing the potential consequences they might face for seeking justice.

The criminal case brought against the organizers is undeniably politically motivated, with the aim of maintaining power and suppressing public activism from critics of Putin’s regime. The verdict delivered today represents yet another step in the direction of quashing constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of not only the people of Ingushetia but also citizens across Russia as a whole. It highlights the authorities’ attempt to curb any form of public activism and dissent.

Free Russia Foundation calls for the immediate release of all individuals unjustly convicted in the “Ingush Case.” Furthermore, we demand that the officials responsible for their unwarranted persecution be held accountable and brought to justice.

We urge the international community, human rights organizations, and all those who stand for freedom and justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the participants in the “Ingush Case.” It is crucial to support their fight for justice and the protection of human rights. Freedom and justice are fundamental and non-negotiable values, and any violation of these principles demands a resolute response and unified support.

We cannot afford to remain indifferent to the ongoing situation, and by coming together in solidarity, we can work towards fostering a truly democratic society.