Navalny Supporters Face Crackdown One Year On

Human Rights Watch

Dozens of arrests on the first anniversary of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny's death are just the tip of the iceberg in the Kremlin's continued crackdown on his supporters, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 16, 2025, Russian law enforcement officers detained at least 42 people at gatherings commemorating Navalny on the first anniversary of his death in prison. Throughout the year, the authorities have used their extensive arsenal of repressive tools to try to suppress public outcry and erase Navalny's political legacy.

"Russia's notoriously vague and broad anti-extremism law is used to prosecute those who call for free and fair elections, expose corruption, advocate on behalf of political prisoners, or appear to identify as Navalny supporters," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The Kremlin sees the exercise of basic human rights as a threat that must be stopped, something Navalny knew well, and for which he paid the price."

Navalny died in a remote prison in Russia's far north while serving a 19-year sentence on bogus politically motivated charges. The authorities threw him behind bars in 2021, as soon as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated after surviving a poisoning attempt apparently orchestrated by Russian security services.

In September 2024, The Insider, a leading Russian investigative media outlet, alleged that his death resulted from another poisoning by government agents. Prison authorities had arbitrarily and repeatedly confined him to various punishment cells and failed to provide him with adequate medical care.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation condemned the lack of "credible investigation into his death" and said that "Alexei Navalny's fate exposes the systematic and widespread repression against peaceful dissenters."

In the first two days following Navalny's death, police arbitrarily detained at least 425 people who had been honoring his memory in various regions of the country; another 106 were detained on March 1, 2024, the day of his funeral. One year later, police in major Russian cities again cordoned off local memorials to the victims of political repression, questioned those who came to lay flowers, recorded their personal data, and even arrested some of them.

The Moscow City Court designated several Navalny-led organizations, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation and his political campaigning offices known as "Navalny's Headquarters" as "extremist" in June 2021.

Human Rights Watch reviewed over a hundred criminal court cases on "financing of extremism" and hundreds of case summaries that leading Russian human rights groups, including Memorial, classify as politically motivated. Those cases indicated that as of February 2025, the authorities have opened criminal cases against more than 50 people for their alleged involvement with the Anti-Corruption Foundation or Navalny's campaigning offices across the country.

At least 37 more people have been criminally charged for donating money to support the work of the Anti-Corruption Foundation; some of those donations as small as US$2. At least 17 people are currently behind bars over their alleged ties to Navalny, including his three defense attorneys, who were convicted on charges of facilitating extremist activities and sentenced to prison in January 2025.

Authorities also use administrative charges against Navalny's apparent supporters. Using the courts' official websites, Human Rights Watch reviewed thousands of administrative cases decided by Russian courts in 2024, under article 20.3 of Russia's Code of Administrative Offenses, "displaying prohibited symbols." An analysis of the wording of those rulings and contextual factors, such as news and social media reports, indicates that at least 57 of those rulings were Navalny-related. The actual number could be higher.

Fifty three of those 57 cases ended in convictions. In 23 of them, the defendants were sentenced to detention of up to 15 days, the maximum punishment on those charges for a first offense. In 20 of the 57 cases, judges handed down fines and short term arrest sentences to punish people for merely mentioning Navalny's name or displaying his photograph.

One judge in Novy Urengoy held that the Moscow City Court designation of Navalny-affiliated organizations, as "extremist" meant that "Navalny [Alexey] is banned on the territory of the Russian Federation." A judge in Yaroslavl convicted a voter for writing in Navalny's name on a ballot in the March 2024 presidential election.

Other offending behavior included use of the popular slogan "Russia without Putin," calls to "Free Navalny," and years-old reposts of the Anti-Corruption Foundation's corruption investigations. Repeated display of any banned symbol is punishable with up to four years in prison, and such symbols currently include the white-blue-white flag used by anti-war protesters, Nazi symbols even when used to criticize the authorities, the rainbow flag, words "Glory to Ukraine," and the Facebook and Instagram logos.

"Instead of misusing and abusing the country's anti-extremism legislation to punish and silence Alexey Navalny's supporters, Russian authorities should carry out an effective investigation into his death in custody," Williamson said.

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