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posted by janrinok on Friday February 16 2024, @04:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the some-battles-you-cannot-win dept.

I have my country and my convictions. And I don't want to give up on either. I can't betray either one. If your convictions mean anything, you must be ready to stand up for them. And, if necessary, make sacrifices [for them]. If you're not ready [to do that], then you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those aren't convictions or principles; they're just thoughts in your head.

It so happens that in today's Russia, I have to pay for my right to have and to openly express my convictions by sitting in solitary confinement. And, of course, I don't like being in prison. But I won't renounce my convictions or my homeland. My convictions aren't exotic, sectarian, or radical. On the contrary, everything I believe in is based on science and historical experience. Those in power must change. The best way to elect leaders is through honest and free elections. Everyone needs a fair court. Corruption destroys the state. There should be no censorship. The future lies with these principles.

Alexey Navalny, Russia's most famous dissident, has died. (4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024).

Returning to Russia in 2021, after having been treated in Berlin for novichok poisoning, Navalny was immediately arrested on arrival at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. Since then, he has been in and out of (but mostly in) solitary confinement all over the country, with his final station being the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Siberia.

On Monday, he had been visited by his parents. In reacting to the news of her son's death, his mother reacted:

"I don't want to hear any condolences. We saw our son in the colony on Feb. 12th. He was alive, healthy, cheerful."

More info here.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday February 16 2024, @05:15PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday February 16 2024, @05:15PM (#1344749)

    It's also 1 month to the day before Russia's next presidential election. So really cementing the "You have no real choice here" factor.

    Another likely target next is going to be chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who has also been heavily involved in dissident movements in Russia.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Friday February 16 2024, @05:34PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Friday February 16 2024, @05:34PM (#1344753) Journal

    Looking into him, I doubt it. He seems to be too smart to actually return to Russia, at least with the current state of affairs. However, he's certainly made his thoughts known.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov [wikipedia.org]

    Kasparov said at a press conference in June 2013 that if he returned to Russia, he doubted he would be allowed to leave again, given Putin's ongoing crackdown on dissenters. "So for the time being," he said, "I refrain from returning to Russia." He explained shortly thereafter in an article for The Daily Beast that this had not been intended as "a declaration of leaving my home country, permanently or otherwise", but merely an expression of "the dark reality of the situation in Russia today, where nearly half the members of the opposition's Coordinating Council are under criminal investigation on concocted charges".
    [...]
    On 20 May 2022, Kasparov was designated as "foreign agent" by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.[251]

    In May 2023, along with a large group of fellow exiles, Kasparov participated in the drafting of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's "Declaration of Russia's Democratic Forces".[252]

    On August 4, 2023, Kasparov participated on the radio show Open to Debate in a debate against Charles Kupchan, where he argued for Ukrainian admission into NATO and against any form of appeasement towards Putin.[253]

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday February 16 2024, @05:49PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday February 16 2024, @05:49PM (#1344758)

      Him not being in Russia doesn't mean he's not a target, it just means it's harder to get to him. Just ask Alexander Litvinenko, lethally poisoned with polonium-209 by the FSB while living in the UK.

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  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Monday February 19 2024, @06:06AM

    by quietus (6328) on Monday February 19 2024, @06:06AM (#1345122) Journal

    I know that Kasparov is opposed to the Putin system, but I don't get the impression he's looked upon as a serious opposition figure. I would rather look towards Vladimir Kara-Murza [meduza.io] (more info here [wikipedia.org]), and a whole lot of currently largely unknown (in the West) ordinary Russians [meduza.io], inside Russia.

    As to organized opposition, the current best bet for the future might be Russian ngo's [meduza.io], cultural circles (Ksenia Sobchak [wikipedia.org], Zhenya Berkovich [meduza.io], Svetlana Petriychuk), or the LGBTQ+ movement (again, inside Russia). That last movement did manage to organize demonstrations across Russia about a year ago, but they'll have to become an underground movement for the sake of physical, personal, survival. But then, that's true for just about anybody that dares to criticize the regime, if even by standing in the street with a white piece of paper, trying to factually correct the President during history class, or having your teenage daughter draw an anti-war picture.

    Let us not forget that many, many ordinary Russians have accepted -- once again -- the risk of spending an unknown number of years in a penal colony, as the price to pay for true patriotism.