Alexei Navalny - “Guilty”

Aug 4 2023 The Guardian

Russian court sentences Alexei Navalny to further 19 years in prison

Alexei Navalny was found guilty of yet more “crimes”, “… including inciting and financing extremism, creating an illegal NGO, the rehabilitation of Nazism, and inciting children to dangerous acts.”

The court extended his prison sentence by 19 years, and as if that was not enough, sentenced him to a special regime with the harshest prison conditions in the country.

“Navalny can only see family once a year and receive one parcel each year. He will be forbidden from talking to fellow inmates. Convicts are led around the prison with their heads bent down and are only allowed to take occasional walks inside a closed courtyard.”

Naturally, following the traditions of Soviet / Russian courts, the trial was held behind closed doors at the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo, about 145 miles (235km) east of Moscow. And obviously, journalists and members of the public have been barred from attending the trial.

What did you expect?

In February, Putin ordered the FSB to raise its game and said it was necessary “to identify and stop the illegal activities of those who are trying to divide and weaken our society”.

After the verdict, Navalny said that the official length of the sentence was not important. “I perfectly understand that, like many political prisoners, I am sitting on a life sentence. Where life is measured by the term of my life or the term of life of this regime,” he said in a message passed to his lawyers and posted online.

In the message, Navalny called on Russians to resist the Kremlin, saying the purpose of the new prison sentence was “to intimidate you, not me”.