Moscow. A Moscow court on Monday convicted a top opponent of the ‘Kremlin’ (Russian government) of treason. Also, he was sued for defaming the Russian army and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. It is the latest step in a crackdown on opponents amid fighting in Ukraine. Prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. survived poisoning twice. He blamed the Russian government for this. Kara-Murza has been in jail since his arrest a year ago. He dismissed the allegations against him as politics. He compared the ongoing judicial proceedings against him to a ‘show trial’ during the regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In his final statement last week, 41-year-old Kara-Murza said he had been jailed for years of fighting against the dictatorship of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I know that the day will come when the darkness that surrounds our country will be cleared,” Kara-Murza, a father of three, said during the hearing last week. His comments appeared on social media networks and in anti-Russian media. He said that this day would surely come because after the severe winter comes spring.
Amnesty International’s response to the case Amnesty International called it yet another atrocious example of systematic repression of civil institutions, which has now become widespread and intensified after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine. He condemned the punishment given to Kara-Murza. “This verdict unfairly conflates high treason and human rights activism and is reminiscent of Stalin-era repression,” Amnesty’s Russia director Natalia Zavygina said in a statement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the sentence.
Kara-Murza gave a March 2022 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in which he condemned Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. After this speech he was taken into custody. While he was in custody investigators added charges of treason. On February 24, 2022, soon after sending troops to Ukraine, Russia enacted a law criminalizing spreading false information about its military. The Russian government calls the crackdown on Ukraine a special military operation and authorities have used the law to stifle criticism of it.
Nemtsov was executed near the Kremlin in 2015 Kara-Murza, a journalist by profession, was an ally of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov was killed near the Kremlin in 2015. Another prominent opposition figure, Ilya Yashin, was sentenced late last year to eight-and-a-half years in prison for defaming the military. At the same time, British Foreign Minister James Cleverly also condemned the sentence given to Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza also holds British citizenship. “Vladimir Kara-Murza boldly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for what it was – a flagrant violation of international law and the United Nations Charter,” Cleverly said in a statement. The Foreign Office said it summoned Russian Ambassador Andrey Kelin over the sentence. UN human rights chief Volker Turk criticized the sentence as another blow to the rule of law and civil expression in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Foreign Ministry of Germany also demanded the release of Kara-Murza.
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