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Exactly a year ago, on January 17, 2021, Alexei Navalny returned to Moscow, after a four-month convalescence in Germany, following his poisoning. As soon as he arrived on Russian soil, the opponent was arrested and subsequently imprisoned. A year later, Alexeï Navalny is in a penal colony, his main lieutenants in exile and his movement is decimated.
In his penal colony surrounded by snowdrifts, Alexeï Navalny spent his first New Year behind bars: “ I don’t know how many such celebrations await me, but the first one will definitely remain in my memory “, he wrote in his diary, published on his social networks.
Since he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for violating his parole in a fraud case dating back to 2014, the crackdown on the opposition has only intensified.
In June, the Russian justice declared “ extremist » all the organizations linked to Alexeï Navalny. All the regional offices of the FBK, its anti-corruption fund, have been dissolved and many of its leaders, forced into exile to escape prison. During the summer, several dozen websites linked to Alexeï Navalny were closed.
Intimidation of all dissenting voices
The police carried out raids in the middle of the night at the homes of simple sympathizers. But the strategy of intimidation goes well beyond the movement of Alexeï Navalny. Several independent media have been declared ” foreign agents and some like Vtimes and Proekt have also been shut down, as has the election monitoring platform Golos.
Finally, on December 31, one of the pillars of the defense of human rights and guardian of the memory of the victims of the Gulag, the NGO Memorial, was banned by the court.
►Also read: In Russia, the dissolution of the NGO Memorial, a predictable decision
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