The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, on behalf of the EU, strongly condemned on Tuesday 22 March in the evening the ruling of a Russian Court to extend the imprisonment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a high-security prison for nine years and to impose an administrative fine of €10,000.
“We also deeply regret that the court hearings were conducted in a de facto closed setting, inaccessible for observers in the penal colony outside Moscow, where Alexei Navalny is already serving another politically motivated sentence, which opens space for the fabrication of charges and lack of exercise of defence rights by the accused”, Mr Borrell said in his statement. In his view, this is the clearest evidence that the Russian legal system continues to be instrumentalised against Mr Navalny.
The High Representative reiterated the EU’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr Navalny, also asking the Russian authorities to comply with the interim measure granted by the European Court of Human Rights on the nature and extent of the risk to Mr Navalny’s life.
In a joint statement, the Chairs of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, David McAllister, and the Human Rights Subcommittee, Maria Arena, the Chair of the Parliament delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, Ryszard Czarnecki (ECR, Poland), and the rapporteur on Russia, Andrius Kubilius (EPP, Lithuania), said the ruling “clearly contravenes” international law and the Russian Constitution and “is unlawful, arbitrary and politically motivated”.
“Today’s verdict demonstrates once again that the Russian regime is waging fear among opposition leaders, activists and civil society”, they added. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)