MOSCOW — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was imprisoned Tuesday after he lost an appeal against the penitentiary officials’ decision to label him “inclined” to commit terrorist or extremist crimes.
Navalny has been in prison since January 2021. He was initially designated by penitentiary officials as a flight threat, which required additional inspections in prison. Officials replaced the “terrorist/extremist” label in October 2013.
“I was afraid they would insist that I kiss portraits of President Vladimir Putin and learn quotes from Dmitry Medvedev, but it wasn’t necessary. It’s just that my bunkbed now has a label which describes me as a terrorist,” Navalny commented on the matter in a tweet.
The defense team and he filed an appeal to contest the label. However, a panel made up of judges from Russia’s Vladimir region (100 km/62 miles east of Moscow) rejected Tuesday’s appeal and decided to maintain the designation.
Putin’s most ferocious foe, Navalny was taken into custody in January 2021 after he returned from Germany. He had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning and was given a 2 1/2-year sentence for parole violations.
Navalny was sentenced in March to nine years imprisonment on fraud and contempt charges. He rejected these charges as being politically motivated. This was an attempt by authorities to keep Navalny behind bars as long as possible.
This sentence came after a year-long Kremlin crackdown against Navalny’s supporters and other opposition activists. Authorities appear determined to suppress all dissent.
Navalny’s associates were charged with criminal offenses and fled the country. His political infrastructure, which included an anti-corruption foundation as well as a network of regional offices across the country, was destroyed when he was labeled an extremist group.
Russia has added Navalny and his associates to its registry of terrorists, extremists, and criminals.
