Authorities on Tuesday added Russia’s main opponent, Alexei Navalny, to their list of “terrorists and extremists”, taking another step in the relentless crackdown targeting critical voices in the Kremlin.
Mr. Navalny, imprisoned for more than a year, and one of his collaborators in exile, Lioubov Sobol, were placed on this list of the Russian financial intelligence service, Rosfinmonitoring, noted AFP.
According to the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK), Mr. Navalny’s organization, banned in June, at least nine other people linked to the opponent’s movement have also been added to this list.
This decision is part of a context of all-out repression in Russia over the past two years against the opposition, the media and civil society, deemed critical of President Vladimir Putin.
In mid-January, the two main lieutenants of Mr. Navalny, Ivan Jdanov and Leonid Volkov, who live in exile, had also been added to the list of Rosfinmonitoring.
“It’s great that such people are joining our super team of ‘terrorists’,” quipped Mr. Zhdanov, who led the FBK, on Twitter.
Lioubov Sobol, 34, a lawyer close to Mr. Navalny and a rising figure in the opposition until his exile, also mocked the decision of the authorities: “Participated in the elections and fought corruption? Extremist,” she wrote on Twitter.
This catalog includes thousands of individuals and hundreds of Islamist, religious and ultra-nationalist organizations banned in Russia. There are, for example, the Afghan Taliban and the jihadist group Islamic State.
“Persistent repression” for Washington
Spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Peter Stano, denounced the “unacceptable” decision and the “continuing crackdown on critical voices in Russian society”.
With the inclusion on this list, “Russia is once again hitting rock bottom in its persistent repression of independent civil society,” added US Foreign Affairs spokesman Ned Price.
In a separate case, the Russian prison administration demanded the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny’s brother, Oleg, accusing him of having violated the conditions of a suspended sentence he received during demonstrations in favor of the release of his brother.
This request must now be examined by a court in Moscow.
Charismatic anti-corruption activist and sworn enemy of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny was arrested in January 2021 when he returned to Russia after convalescing in Germany, due to poisoning for which he holds Vladimir Putin responsible.
Russia never carried out a full investigation into this poisoning in Siberia in August 2020, claiming to see no evidence of a crime and accusing Berlin of refusing to share the famous opponent’s medical analyzes.
After his return and his arrest, Mr. Navalny, 45, was given a two and a half year prison sentence for an old case of fraud which he describes as political.
This condemnation sparked a shower of international criticism and new Western sanctions against Moscow.
In support, the European Parliament presented Alexis Navalny with its 2021 Sakharov Prize for the defense of freedom of thought.
Repeated lawsuits
Despite his imprisonment, Mr. Navalny continues to urge his fellow citizens to stand up, regularly posting messages on social networks.
On January 17, a year to the day after his arrest, Mr. Navalny thus affirmed “no regrets” and called on the Russians not to be “afraid”.
The arrest of Alexeï Navalny had triggered several days of demonstrations a year ago, but they had been brutally repressed.
Then, it was his movement that was banned in June for “extremism”.
Mr. Navalny is also the target of new legal proceedings for “extremism”, which could allow him to be kept in prison for many years.
The repression of his movement has been followed by increasing pressure on the media critical of the Kremlin and NGOs, who are constantly referred to as “foreign agents”, an infamous label that greatly complicates their work.
In December, the NGO Memorial, a pillar of the defense of human rights and guardian of the memory of the victims of the Gulag, was banned by the Russian courts for not having respected its obligations as a “foreign agent”. .
This repression is also illustrated on the Internet and Russia constantly sanctions large digital companies, especially foreign ones, accused of not erasing “illegal” content, including that linked to the opposition.