Translated material
The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Oleg Navalny as a political prisoner
The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Oleg Navalny as a political prisoner, sentenced to three and a half years in prison in the Yves Rocher case. published on the center’s website on January 22 A statement reads: “The Memorial Human Rights Center has previously stated that it considers the criminal prosecution of Alexei and Oleg Navalny in connection with the activities of the Main Subscription Agency OJSC to be politically motivated and illegal. This position is based on the fact that, on the one hand, there is an obvious political motive in the criminal prosecution: the termination of Alexei's public activities, the elimination of the threats that his activities pose to the current government. On the other hand, in our opinion, there was no corpus delicti in Navalny's actions. It was a normal business activity, disputes in connection with which could and should have been resolved in a civil law manner. But the persons declared “victims” did not make such claims, and the criminal case was actually initiated not on their initiative, but on the initiative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. <...> Consideration of the criminal case in the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow additionally confirmed the correctness of the position of the Memorial Human Rights Center, convincingly proving the innocence of Navalny. The court sentenced Oleg to imprisonment, the convict was taken into custody. These circumstances give grounds to consider him a political prisoner, and his imprisonment is illegal. Additional grounds for this are the circumstances of the announcement of the verdict: its postponement, and then the announcement of only the operative part, the taking of Oleg Navalny into custody in the absence of the full text of the verdict and before it enters into force, contrary to the direct prohibition to apply detention to those accused of economic crimes. .
Oleg Navalny is currently in the Butyrka pre-trial detention center.