Russia will hold a presidential election over three days starting Friday, and there is no doubt about the outcome. President Vladimir Putin rigged the electoral process so that he could remain in power for at least six more years. This travesty is thus an extension of Russia's tragedy, the most heartbreaking recent manifestation of which saw Russian dissident Alexei Navalny spend long periods of time in cramped solitary confinement. He died in an Arctic prison after nearly three years of increasingly severe physical and mental suffering. The best way to commemorate Putin's re-election is to remember Navalny. At the same time, remember that as a political prisoner he was never alone in Russia or around the world.
These are other Navalnyites. Among them is Post Opinion contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was arrested two years ago for strongly criticizing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Kara Murza, a journalist, historian and political activist, was unreasonably accused of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Russia's other main culprit is political activist Ilya Yashin, who was wrongly sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in December 2022 for spreading false information about the Russian military. Since February 2022, Russian authorities have detained 19,855 people who took part in anti-war demonstrations and filed criminal charges against 909 anti-war dissidents, according to monitoring group OVD-Info.
In Cuba, dissident José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union, has been repeatedly punished for fictitious crimes, resulting in actual prison terms. He was detained in 2021 during a national uprising against the communist regime and is currently serving a four-year sentence at the Mal Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba. His family said they had not been in contact with him for a year and reported that he was in poor health.
Around the same time as Ferrer was detained, Cuban authorities arrested Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, founder of the Havana artists' movement San Isidro. He is serving a five-year sentence for “insulting national symbols.” Equally unjust is the imprisonment of Michael Castillo Pérez, known as Michael Osorbo, a Cuban musician, rapper, and leader of the San Isidro movement. He won two Latin Grammy Awards for the protest movement's anthem “Patria y Vida.” He was arrested in May 2021.
A spokesperson for the same ideals that motivated Mr. Navalny is Belarus's Ales Biaryatsky, founder of Viasna. Viasna is an organization that has been fighting for civil society and against human rights abuses since 1996 under the errant dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Biaryatsky, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was arrested in July 2021 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for bringing funds into the country to support mass demonstrations against Lukashenko's theft of the 2020 presidential election. was sentenced. Other Viasna leaders are also in prison. Lukashenko has long denied political prisoners access to his family and tortured them. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has not heard from her husband, Sergei, who was imprisoned by Belarusian authorities when he announced his candidacy against Lukashenko. over 1 year.Maria Kolesnikova, who was ticketed with Tikhanovskaya, was also jailed and remains in isolation. for 1 yearAccording to the family. Victor Babarico, a banker who was a popular presidential candidate, has been arrested and imprisoned, and is often incommunicado for long periods of time.
In Turkey, the government of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sentenced philanthropist Osman Kabala to life in prison on charges the European Court of Human Rights based on a “lack of facts, information and evidence.” Mr. Kabbalah was engaged exclusively in peaceful protests and organizing. The European Court of Justice said Kavala had been charged with “the ulterior purpose of silencing the applicant”.
Salma Al Shehab, a mother of two young children and a researcher at the University of Leeds, returned to Saudi Arabia on holiday. Shehab is a women's rights activist and a Shiite Muslim, a persecuted minority in Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities detained her in 2021 after she tweeted to advocate for women's right to drive and called for the freedom of Loujain al-Hathloul, who was imprisoned and tortured for doing so. Shehab's 34-year sentence, which was later commuted to 27 years, is arguably one of the harshest sentences ever for a single social media post.
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From China to Egypt, Iran to Myanmar, there are many more. They are victims of dictators and dictators who cannot tolerate freedom of speech and assembly. We cannot forget the other Mr. Navalny.
