- 18 February 2021
The arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of the Russian prominent anti-corruption campaigner and opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, and the concurrent arrests and detention on spurious charges of his colleagues from the Anti-Corruption Foundation and other civil society activists and peaceful protesters are the latest in the series of severe, brazen reprisals against all dissent in Russia.
The prosecution of Aleksei Navalny is politically motivated and so is the prosecution of his colleagues and supporters who face arbitrary arrests and unlawful deprivation of liberty. They are deprived of their freedom solely for their peaceful political activism and exercising the right to freedom of expression and they must be immediately released. Amnesty International calls on the Council of Europe to pay active attention to these developments, condemn them in the strongest terms, and call for immediate release of all those detained for peaceful exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly.