US EditionECHR Finds Russia’s 2021 Arrest of Alexei Navalny Illegal
- Today in Strasbourg, the ECHR found that Russia's 2021 arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny involved inhuman treatment and unlawful imprisonment, including shaving his head and sleep deprivation.
- Records show the 2021 detention stemmed from activation of a suspended 2014 sentence for fraud and money-laundering after Navalny returned from Germany following a Novichok poisoning, the ECHR found.
- Judges detailed a pattern of ill-treatment that included Alexei Navalny being shaved, kept under constant video surveillance, and deprived of sleep through hourly or two-hourly checks in one penal colony.
- It ordered Russia to pay $45,000 in damages and authorized Yulia Navalnaya to continue proceedings after Navalny's death.
- Russia has a record of non-compliance with ECHR judgments; Moscow quit the Council of Europe after 2022 and refused in 2025 to pay Georgia almost US$300 million.
20 Articles
20 Articles
The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Russia for its dealings with Kremlin critic Navalny.
To this day, Alexei Navalny's death has not been solved behind bars. The European Court of Human Rights now speaks of the Kremlin critic's "inhuman treatment".
ECHR Finds Russia’s 2021 Arrest of Alexei Navalny Illegal
Europe's top human rights court ruled Tuesday that Russia subjected opposition activist Alexi Navalny to "inhuman treatment" following his arrest in 2021, three years before his death at an Arctic prison.
Moscow must pay more than EUR 25,000 moral damage, according to Agerpres who reads AFP, after the European Court of Human Rights (ECO) sentenced Russia to "human trafficking" and "illegal detention".
For years the Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny is sitting in Russian criminal camps. In 2024 he dies in prison. The circumstances are still unclear. His widow now finds the inhumanity of this system in court. However, the judgment as well as the compensation are above all symbolic.
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