Alexei Navalny's lawyers are arrested
economist.com
economist.com
They tried to murder him and after spending time in a German hospital he decided to go back knowing that they'll imprison him or try to kill him again.
I think the risk was huge (personally I thought 50-70% at the time), but not 99% or something. Also (in my opinion) people don't take into account that alternative was irrelevance in exile, just look at what happened with Kasparov's popularity inside Russia, and he was a prominent opposition activist in 2011-2012.
That's exactly what sets rare individuals like Navalny apart: that what they believe in, what they stand for, weighs heavier than their personal well-being.
Exactly. I don't understand fascination of some westerners towards Navalny. He used to attend nazi rallies (literal sieg-heiling nazis, not "you are slightly right of Bernie"), then assumed veneer of political respectability without ever formally denouncing his previous talking points and started campaigning with the main premise of basically "I'll be better and less corrupt Czar of Russian empire". There is nothing liberal or democratic about this guy's political views.
Then again, Kasparov undermines Russia more efficiently while in exile than Navalny while inside (a prison no less). And Navalvy social media statements in exile might have been even more undermining Kasparov's.
Of course, undermining Russia with words might not help at all anyway...
"He's not even in Russia, what does he know."
I don't know why Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned and nearly killed by Putin's thugs, but it was a very brave thing to do. It makes no sense.
Russia has always fought tyranny with literature.
Grant money that can yield all right.
Before his imprisonment and prior to the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Navalny held positions that some might describe as nationalistic. For example, his stance on Crimea has been ambivalent, with statements that sometimes tacitly accept Russia's annexation of the region.
Navalny has a history of ethnocentric comments and has been involved in nationalist rallies in Russia. This complicates the narrative that he is solely a liberal figure fighting for democracy.
He opposes Putin's regime, but his political ideology doesn't necessarily align with values of international law, human rights, and economic freedoms.
> In order to have any chance of successfully rallying of people you do need
> to appeal to some of their base instincts
I'm not questioning his courage or opposition to Putin; my aim is to highlight that his political ideology isn't straightforward.
Should he unexpectedly assume presidency, his past statements make it unclear whether he'd reverse Russia's actions in Ukraine, (but there would be a chance).
That said western media does have the habit of glossing over the actual platform of any dictators opposition, see for instance the breathless adoration the Dalai Lama gets.
But him facing jail with an upright stance shows a lot of skin in the game, you cannot ignore that.
I genuinely wonder why his captors even continue to let him live, when it seems like any post-2022 civil protest in Russia can and will be brutally repressed.
For some people that's worse than death. It's a clear message from Putin. Get in my way and you'll end up like him.
Not everybody is going to take that risk.
Is he in as precarious a state as Julian Assange is?
Now there’s this white haired journalist that’s currently rotting in a British jail because of his work…
Or are we just doing whataboutism?
What remains is a fog, the uncertainty about there being truth at all. Assange should not be in prison. But the law has not decayed in the west to the point, were its non-existant anymore, power-mad anarchy dancing naked but a paper-loincloth in the streets ala russia.
The should free assange, just to silence these bots.
Who's the bot?
The post is about Russia and how they've now have arrested a lawyer because he's representing navalni.
So then point to be where the UK is part of Russia, or maybe just maybe we should hold the topic of "unfairly arrested" where we can talk all day long about assange, navalni or anyone else.
Besides assange is no lawyer, a better whataboutism would be trumps lawyers who are either arrested have charges against them.
I can sympathize with genuine causes but cheap potshots like whataboutism is just such a cynical means.
This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons, you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible, here you go: "Russian whistleblower who uncovered that the Russian government spied on all of its people has fled to the US to avoid being imprisoned in Russia", talking about Snowden of course.
And further more, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from opening a thread here and now where we can discuss the topic of unfair arrests.
>This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons
If I invented the term "whatboutism" I would've been proud how certain people over-dramatize it's invention.
Whataboutism is just a more proper word for the logical fallacy "Tu quoque" or appeal to hypocrisy, which is used to divert attention away from the original specific topic and instead try and force the topic to either be as broad and inconsequential as possible or to make us focus on this 'hypocrite' to avert attention away from the original specific topic.
>you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible
The assertion that replacing one country's name with another creates a "plausible" story is just overly reductive.
It says nothing about the context nor the specific situations at hand, you're effectively flipping the concern at hand.
Where the origin of the story is more important than the actual evidence at hand.
My main point was to remind that we too are at risk of suffering the same kind of authoritarianism we point our fingers to. Russia is currently being very blatant in how it uses trumped up charges to make an example of someone and discourage further opposition, but I felt obligated to remind everyone that they’re not the only ones.
The West does it less, and it does it more subtly, but everywhere I look (mostly Europe) there’s a substantial increase in the use of authoritarian practices. We’re not immune to full blown authoritarianism making a come back.
https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/10/18/defense-lawyers-arreste...
https://apnews.com/article/russia-navalny-dissidents-prison-...
(I realize Russia is a banana republic and Navalny is a hero but does he actually represent something that has wide support in Russia? From the few Russians I have talked to, they seems supportive of Putin despite everything.)
"When asked 300 days before presidential elections Russians say they would vote for:
30,2% Putin
2% Prigozhin
2% Navalny
1.3% Zhirinovsky (who is dead)"
https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1663222792605630464
https://russianfield.com/300days
Not a lot, but still higher than other non-Putin candidates (except Prigozhin, who is now dead)
The political landscape in Russia is basically this: United Russia, commies and ultranationalists. All of these are pro war with the exception of a single party with a single member in the Duma, which opposes the war due to economic reasons.
Firstly, many people wouldn't say they'd vote for Navalny -- that's just against the self-preservation instincts.
Secondly, there are many people who are not "in love" with Navalny, his team and personal views, but still think he'd be a much better president than Putin.
I'd personally estimate the count of people here (in Russia) that are neutral/neutral-positive/positive about Navalny at 15-25%. And much higher at hightech giants and top univesities at Moscow/Saint-Petersburg.
1. Many of his most fervent followers fleeing the country in February or September 2022.
2. His team being useless and consisting of people of very questionable loyalty (the question remains why he let them all in), and in many cases under their own brands.
3. Overall switch from the anti-corruption discourse towards different set of topics, such as war, etc - where he does not have much relevance.
4. Him being AFK (not to blame him for that).
5. His organization FBK now resides abroad, burning grant money and not doing anything useful for Russian residents.
Speaking of racism and nationalism, let's be honest Euromaidan in 2014 would never succeed without the support of the Right Sector. This type of brutal force was missing in Belarus 2020 protests.
Some time later it became apparent that he is not going to be elected and elections will not be the thing, so the new plan was getting paid by State Dept NGOs, with corresponding change to "views".
My personal take on Navalny is that he mostly was a charismatic opportunist, but eventually that lured him in a trap.
Ukrainians should be grateful for support they get and dramatically reduce sense of entitlement. US provided more material support to Ukraine in the last year than to any other country in history. Constant whining becomes tedious and defense of the democracy argument is questionable.
The overall statement is false (he remains the most recognized opposition figure in the country).
That Putin realized Russia was ripe for takeover is brilliant on his part, but it has been hell for the Russian people who allowed it to happen.
Don't get me worng: The state of justice here is certainly better than in Russia, but we should give ourselves the same scrutiny we give to the Russians. Closing our eyes when we do obvious unlawful things is bad for our rule of law and makes us look like hypocrites when we (rightfully) point out injustices elsewhere.
On the other hand, not even his fellow journalists do anything... They could at least do a weekly article, "assange is still in jail", because in reality, you're either "just a reporter" (who writes articles about what someone, usually from the government, said) or you could actually do some meaningful investigative work, and end up like him. I know that corporate mainstream media reports just what their owners want them to report, but even kevin mitnick had more media support and individuals asking hard questions than assange has now.
> ■■■ no ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ free ■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ press ■■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■ ■ ■■■
or something else equally snarky.
But Snowden still comes across as one of the "good guys", someone who was expecting to get hurt and did his thing anyway because it was the right thing to do, whereas Assange… comes across wanting to be the headline rather than be responsible for the headline.
Well, came across; I've only heard statements about him or on his behalf since he left the embassy, not from his own mouth. But the old reputation stuck.
Wikileaks, and Assange as its figurehead, are a different deal. They enable whistleblowing, and as journalists they can report over and over again. Whistleblowers typically whistle only once. Journalists can re-whistle constantly.
Most importantly though, journalists who actually protect their sources (hopefully that’s a tautology) can forward illegally obtained information and shield their sources from any legal repercussions. Kind of the whole point of source protection, but even Western governments don’t like whistleblowers evading the law. They’d rather know who blew the whistle, just to make sure it’s never blown inappropriately. Because inappropriately blown whistles are so much worse than inappropriately unblown whistles I guess?
I know the 'rape' bit was probably political, but he seems like the type of guy who would totally do that, and I think he actually did considering his lawyer responses. The fact that the woman brought it to court however, that's the point that is suspicious to me. A consequent fraction (at least 10% imho) of the male population could be condemned for the same stuff, dirty pigs. And the fact that it was a successful trial. My sister was actually raped by her employer, and advices from both the police and lawyers were "you can't bring that to court, it's a 'he said she said' situation, you should just make a report and 'hope another girl get raped'" (rough translation of what the 'helpful' policeman said).
Absolutely. I will never be satisfied with any punishments or justice system, unless and until that system cannot be abused — if it can be used against Team Us by Team Them when Team Them are next in power, it had better be because Team Us actually did something wrong. Even if Team Them today won't abuse the system, it's just waiting for trouble.
That said:
> Yeah. But he was also over a decade in jail without a trial.
He spent most of that decade hiding from an extradition, and is currently refused bail on the grounds that last time he was given it, he jumped. That's very different in important ways.
Now, as demonstrated by the fact that we collectively did, we can spend the entirety of that duration arguing:
(1) if the things he was accused of doing were in fact crimes (they were, but some people at the time were claiming they weren't).
(2) if the women who made the accusations were secret US government plants — they could be, but I doubt based on statements attributed to one of the accusers communicating with the Swedish prosecutor even after Assange had been ejected from the embassy.
(3) if the legal system had pressure put on it to keep him pinned down in one place for the sake of the US investigation — I suspect yes, albeit only at the first stage: the reason I think pressure was put upon the system is that sexual offences are notoriously difficult to prove and accusations normally don't go anywhere, the reason I think "only the first stage" is that he'd already claimed asylum before it got very far. Furthermore, the investigation was re-opened (briefly) after Assange had been ejected from the embassy and the new extradition request from the USA, and the combination is stupid, which is suggestive without being proof (after all, governments do stupid things all the time).
(4) and also if he even did the things he was accused of — I lean towards thinking he did, because (a) sexual offences happen way more than most people realise, and (b) all the people who, upon hearing of the nature of the allegation, argued #1 in the negative, saying something along the lines of "surely that can't be a crime!" or "this is merely rude, not criminal", neither of which is the standard of evidence used in a court case, hence the difficulty of proof that is my reason for thinking pressure was put on the system in #3.
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Despite all that, the current extradition process to the USA sounds suspect, at the very least.
The intelligence people were annoyed with him back then, hence all the claims of even that arrest being "a conspiracy" sounding at least slightly plausible, and yet, even then, they were demonstrably so uninterested that he could walk to an embassy and claim asylum.
He has been denied bail now because he skipped bail then and when doing so specifically said his reason was not wanting to end up in the country who now wants to extradite him.
And to be blunt, saying "as I am afraid of being extradited to the USA, I want to remain in a country that has a history of extraditing people to the USA rather than be extradited to a different country that has a slightly lesser reputation for the same" was one of the things that a decade ago made me think he was fleeing justice for the sexual offences rather than being sincere in (what ought to have been a legitimate) fear of the USA.
Wasn’t there a way for Sweden to promise him not to extradite him to the US?
I’ve heard he wasn’t even heard by Swedish justice, even though he offered to be heard remotely (from England), and such a thing was done in similar cases.
Solving one or the other would have showed with much more certainty whether he was actually trying to flee the sexual charges or not. Though perhaps the Swedish prosecutor just wanted to maximise the chances of having him in Swedish custody.
Was that a sarcastic comment or did you entirely miss out the whole Snowden affair ?
AFAIK Snowden's lawyers have never been newsworthy — I'm sure he's got some, but I've never heard of them.