Europe court condemns Russia for ‘inhuman treatment’ of Putin critic Navalny
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A person lays flowers at the grave of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny while marking the first anniversary of his death at a cemetery in Moscow on Feb 16.
PHOTO: REUTERS
STRASBOURG, France - Europe’s top rights court condemned Russia on Feb 3 for “inhuman treatment” and “unlawful imprisonment” over the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2021, who died three years later in custody.
The ruling comes after Navalny’s death under unexplained circumstances in an Arctic prison in 2024, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on a string of charges widely seen as retribution for his opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian authorities jailed the anti-corruption activist in 2021 after he returned from Germany, where he had spent months recovering from a Novichok nerve agent poisoning in 2020 while campaigning in Siberia.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Navalny’s arrest was based on the “activation of a suspended prison sentence” for a 2014 fraud and money laundering charge, which it had already denounced as not fair.
The court also ruled that the anti-corruption campaigner was “simultaneously subjected to a combination of several forms of ill-treatment”, which “reflected a pattern of disregard for his health, well-being and dignity, and amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment”.
In one penal colony, Navalny had his head shaved, “was kept under constant video surveillance, and deprived of sleep through hourly or two-hourly security checks”, said the ruling.
Navalny had lodged an appeal with the ECHR, which in February 2021 petitioned Moscow for his immediate release.
The court authorised his widow, Ms Yulia Navalnaya, to continue the proceedings on his behalf after his death.
His allies allege he was murdered in prison, and Moscow has never fully explained the causes of his death, saying only that he fell ill while walking in the prison yard on February 16, 2024.
The court ordered Russia to pay €26,000 ($45,000) in damages.
But Moscow quit the Council of Europe – of which the ECHR is part – following its 2022 offensive on Ukraine.
The court says it remains liable for violations committed before then.
Moscow has repeatedly ignored ECHR rulings, including while it was still a member of the Council of Europe.
In a separate case, Russia in 2025 said it would not comply with a ruling ordering it to pay Georgia almost US$300 million for violations it has allegedly committed since their 2008 war. AFP
