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Alexei Navalny

Russian opposition leader and political prisoner (born 1976)

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny (born 4 June 1976) is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist. He came to international prominence by organizing anti-government demonstrations and running for office to advocate reforms against corruption in Russia, and against President Vladimir Putin and his government. Navalny was a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member. He is the leader of the Russia of the Future party and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. Navalny accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB). The EU, UK and US responded by imposing sanctions on senior Russian officials. On 17 January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia and was detained on accusations of violating parole conditions because he had failed to report to Russia's Federal Prison Service (FSIN) twice per month during his illness. Following his arrest and the release of the documentary Putin's Palace, which accused Putin of corruption, mass protests were held across Russia. On 2 February, his suspended sentence was replaced with a prison sentence of over two and half years' detention in a corrective labour colony in Vladimir Oblast. While in prison, Navalny and human rights groups have accused Russian authorities of using torture against him. He is recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. In October 2021, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his work on human rights.

The inner compass of Alexei Navalny says where to go to Alexei Navalny, and everything else is uninteresting to me.

Quotes Edit

  • No one should be beaten. [Instead,] everything that bothers us should be carefully, but unyieldingly eliminated by means of deportation... A tooth without a root is considered dead. A nationalist is he who does not want the root ‘Russian’ to be deleted from the word ‘Russia.’ We have the right to be Russian in Russia and we will protect this right.
 
I think many Russians, but also a lot of Westerners, make a very serious mistake in trying to look for… a better person to become president. They are searching for such a person in Navalny, in myself, but that’s a mistake. Anyone who replaces Putin is going to take Russia along the same imperialist route.
[...] It is a very large and very diverse country, and if you want to manage it from one central spot, you need to have a very strong bureaucratic apparatus. To have such a huge apparatus at the centre has to be explained by having to protect the country from an outside enemy – there is no other explanation that people will accept.
~ Mikhail Khodorkovsky
  • We have problems with illegal migration, we have the problem of the Caucasus, we have a problem of ethnic crimes... the fact that our authorities hypocritically pretend that such problems do not exist leads to people discussing them only in the street, at the Russian March.
  • The inner compass of Alexei Navalny tells Alexei Navalny where to go. Everything else is uninteresting to me.
    • Echo of Moscow (2013)
    • Original Russian: Нет такого спонсора, которому я хотел бы угодить. Благодаря этому, кстати, мы сейчас на свою избирательную кампанию собрали 39 миллионов точно также маленькими пожертвованиями, поэтому мы абсолютно свободны, и я очень наслаждаюсь этим положением, что я вообще могу что угодно делать, то, что я хочу. Внутренний компас Алексея Навального говорит, куда идти Алексею Навальному, а все остальное мне неинтересно.

We - Russia - want to be a nation of peace (2022) Edit

 
We — Russia — want to be a nation of peace. Alas, few people would call us that now.
But let's at least not become a nation of frightened silent people. Of cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war against Ukraine unleashed by our obviously insane czar.
 
Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There's no one to do it for us. Let's not "be against the war." Let's fight against the war.
Twitter thread (2 March 2022)
  • We — Russia — want to be a nation of peace. Alas, few people would call us that now.
    But let's at least not become a nation of frightened silent people. Of cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war against Ukraine unleashed by our obviously insane czar.
    I cannot, do not want and will not remain silent watching how pseudo-historical nonsense about the events of 100 years ago has become an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians, and for Ukrainians to kill Russians while defending themselves.
    It's the third decade of the 21st century, and we are watching news about people burning down in tanks and bombed houses. We are watching real threats to start a nuclear war on our TVs.
    I am from the USSR myself. I was born there. And the main phrase from there — from my childhood — was "fight for peace." I call on everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace.
  • Putin is not Russia. And if there is anything in Russia right now that you can be most proud of, it is those 6824 people who were detained because - without any call - they took to the streets with placards saying "No War". They say that someone who cannot attend a rally and does not risk being arrested for it cannot call for it. I'm already in prison, so I think I can.
    We cannot wait any longer. Wherever you are, in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet, go to the main square of your city every weekday and at 2 pm on weekends and holidays.
    If you are abroad, come to the Russian embassy. If you can organise a demonstration, do so on the weekend. Yes, maybe only a few people will take to the streets on the first day. And in the second - even less.
    But we must, gritting our teeth and overcoming fear, come out and demand an end to the war.
    Each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers.
    If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves.
    Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There's no one to do it for us. Let's not "be against the war." Let's fight against the war.

Quotes about Edit

  • I think many Russians, but also a lot of Westerners, make a very serious mistake in trying to look for… a better person to become president. They are searching for such a person in [Alexei] Navalny, in myself, but that’s a mistake. Anyone who replaces Putin is going to take Russia along the same imperialist route.
    [...] It is a very large and very diverse country, and if you want to manage it from one central spot, you have to have a very strong bureaucratic apparatus.
    To have such a huge apparatus at the centre has to be explained by having to protect the country from an outside enemy – there is no other explanation that people will accept.

External links Edit

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