portrait of three political opponents imprisoned in Russia

Two months after the death of Alexeï Navalny, main opponent of Vladimir Putin, human rights associations estimate that more than a thousand people are imprisoned in Russia for having opposed power.

The presidential election of the Russian Federation will take place from Friday March 15 to Sunday March 17. A vote without suspense, less than two months after the death in prison of lawyer Alexeï Navalny, the main opponent of Vladimir Putin. According to human rights organizations, there are today more than a thousand political prisoners being held in Russian jails. But some continue to speak out, while their loved ones fear for their lives.

This is the case of Vladimir Kara-Murza, arrested in April 2022 in Moscow and sentenced by the Russian authorities to 25 years in prison for treason. This anti-corruption activist escaped two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017. Since then, his health has been extremely fragile.

Detained in Omsk, in Siberia, where he is placed in solitary confinement, this close friend of Alexeï Navalny did not fail to react to the death of his friend. In a series of posts on the social network X, he accuses Vladimir Putin: “This man has carried death with him since he came to power. It is the best who die, the most courageous, the most sincere”

“Single-handedly, a vindictive, cowardly, greedy old man destroys all those he sees as a threat to his power.”

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian political opponent

franceinfo

For his part, Ilya Iachine was sentenced in 2022 to eight and a half years in prison for denouncing the war in Ukraine. At the end of February, he appeared remotely from his prison, during a court hearing filmed by a handful of journalists. In his address to the judge, Ilya Yashin challenged Vladimir Putin, not hesitating to call him a tyrant: “Your honor, I am proud to tell you openly : I will not start to lower myself, to be afraid, to cry, to implore you for a more lenient verdict. I will be more comfortable living these years even in captivity, with dignity, without resigning myself to the will of a man who represents evil.”

Evguenia Kara-Mourza, the wife of Vladimir Kara-Mourza, lives in Washington with her three children. “Intrepid voices like those of Alexei Navalny, my husband, Ilya Yashin and hundreds of political prisoners in Russia immensely frighten Vladimir Putin, who is nothing but a murderer, a Chekist who only knows what to do. war, steal and kill”, she says.

Jailed for labeling war in Ukraine

And since the start of the war in Ukraine, the repression has been even broader. It concerns all segments of society. Since the adoption in Russia two years ago of a law called “against fake news”, thousands of people have been worried by the courts. Sacha Skochilenko is an artist, musician, poet. The 33-year-old was sentenced to seven years in prison last November for changing the price tags of a St. Petersburg supermarket with ones containing messages about the war in Ukraine.

“Each label gave informationexplains his mother, Nadejda, a refugee in France near Paris. For example: ‘Putin has been lying to us for 20 years on television’, or: ‘In Mariupol, they bombed the theater, where 400 people were taking refuge’… That kind of thing.” In prison, Sasha Skochilenko’s health, like that of hundreds of other prisoners, is declining. The young woman suffers from a digestive disease and has heart problems. “His heart sometimes stops for more than two secondsworries his mother. His state of health is not at all compatible with remaining in prison, where there can be no emergency medical assistance.” Without having high hopes, the young woman appealed.

“The mountain of letters I receive warms me”

In the meantime, its large support committee publishes its messages and drawings on the internet because in Russia, it is possible to correspond with prisoners via an online platform subject to censorship by the prison administration.

“If all political prisoners in Russia received the same support as me, we would probably live in another country today, enthuses the young woman. You are all great people, sending messages of love and support to someone you don’t know. Sometimes I feel really bad here, it’s almost unbearable. But the mountain of letters I receive warms me like a campfire in the middle of the forest in summer.” For the young woman, the whole of Russia today resembles a huge prison. But the repressive machine, she says, will not be eternal.