Geneva, Switzerland – UN rights experts called Monday for an independent probe into alleged Israeli abuses against Palestinian women and girls, including killings, rapes and sexual assault.
The statement by the seven independent UN experts prompted an angry reaction from Israel, which rejected the “despicable and unfounded claims”.
The experts voiced alarm at “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” targeting women and girls in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
They cited reports of women and girls reportedly being “arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children”.
“We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing,” they said.
The independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not represent the United Nations, also pointed to the “arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls”, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarians.
They said many of those detained had reported been subjected to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, including severe beatings and being denied menstrual pads, food and medicine.
They voiced particular alarm at reports of “multiple forms of sexual assault”, including reports of rapes of at least two female detainees, while others were “stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers”.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 29,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
The experts called for an “independent, impartial, prompt, thorough and effective investigation” into the allegations, urging Israel to cooperate.
The Israeli mission in Geneva dismissed the statement saying the experts were “motivated by their hatred for Israel, not by the truth”.
It said Israeli authorities had received no complaints, but stood ready to investigate any “concrete claims of misconduct by its security forces when presented with credible allegations and evidence”.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) – The UN Security Council will vote on a new draft resolution Tuesday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, despite threat of a third US veto on such a text.
The document, prepared by Algeria, “demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties.”
The vote comes as Israel prepares to move into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where some 1.4 million people have fled, as part of its mission to destroy “Hamas”.
However it is facing increased pressure to hold off, including from its closest ally the United States.
The draft resolution opposes the “forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population.”
It additionally demands the release of all Hamas hostages.
Similarly to other previous drafts spurned by the United States and Israel, the new text does not condemn Hamas’s October 7 assault.
That attack left about 1,160 people dead in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 29,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the health ministry.
The United States warned over the weekend that Algeria’s text was not acceptable, threatening to veto it.
“We don’t believe that this Council product will help the situation on the ground,” US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said Monday.
“If this resolution does come to a vote, it will not go forward.”
According to Wood, the passage of such a ceasefire resolution would endanger ongoing delicate diplomatic negotiations which could see the release of hostages from Gaza.
The United States instead began circulating an alternate draft, seen by AFP Monday.
While that text does include the word “ceasefire” — which the United States has previously avoided, vetoing two drafts in October and December which used the term — it does not call for the end of hostilities to happen immediately.
‘Moral obligation’
Echoing recent comments by President Joe Biden, the US draft supports a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released.”
It also mentions concern for Rafah, stating that “a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances.”
There is no “deadline” for a vote on the American draft, a senior US official said Monday, adding there would be no “rush.”
But even if there is no hurry, the US text “as it is… cannot pass,” one diplomatic source said, citing several issues around the phrasing of “ceasefire” and the risk that any text introduced to the 15-member body by the United States might face a veto from Russia.
In any case, the mere fact the United States has introduced a counter-resolution is likely to “make Israel nervous,” Richard Gowan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
“The US is finally using the Security Council as a platform to signal the limits of its patience with the Israeli campaign,” Gowan said.
Despite the specter of a US veto, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour had insisted on a vote days ago, saying that the Arab Group had been “more than generous to give our colleagues additional time.”
According to Gowan, “We are now grinding towards a US veto that nobody really wants, but nobody can avoid,” noting that the vote will fall within a few days of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I am sure that Russia will use the opportunity (of a US veto) to accuse the US of having double standards when it comes to dealing with civilian suffering in Ukraine and the Middle East,” Gowan said.
Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said it is “sad that we cannot come (up) with a ceasefire… and that only one delegation is preventing that.”
Chinese representative Jun Zhang said the Security Council has a “moral obligation” to take action “to stop the killings,” pointing out that the United States may veto such a move but meanwhile they are “always calling for protection of human rights.”
The Hague (AFP) – Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki told the UN’s top court Monday his people were suffering “colonialism and apartheid” under the Israelis, urging judges to order an immediate and unconditional end to the occupation.
“The Palestinians have endured colonialism and apartheid… There are those who are enraged by these words. They should be enraged by the reality we are suffering,” Al-Maliki told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ is holding hearings all week on the legal implications of Israel’s occupation since 1967, with an unprecedented 52 countries, including the United States and Russia, expected to give evidence.
Speaking in the Peace Palace in The Hague, where the ICJ sits, the minister urged judges to declare the occupation illegal and order it to stop “immediately, totally and unconditionally.”
“Justice delayed is justice denied and the Palestinian people have been denied justice for far too long,” he said.
“It is time to put an end to the double standards that have kept our people captive for far too long.”
‘Impunity and inaction’
In December 2022, the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ for a non-binding “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
While any ICJ opinion would be non-binding, it comes amid mounting international legal pressure on Israel over the intense attacks on Gaza.
The hearings are separate from a high-profile case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel is committing genocidal acts during the current Gaza offensive.
Al-Maliki charged however that “the Genocide underway in Gaza is a result of decades of impunity and inaction.”
“Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative,” he said.
In January, the ICJ ruled in that case that Israel must do everything in its power to prevent genocide and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, stopping short of ordering a ceasefire.
On Friday, it rejected South Africa’s bid to impose additional measures on Israel, but reiterated the need to carry out the ruling in full.
‘Prolonged occupation’
The UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to consider two questions.
Firstly, the court should examine the legal consequences of what the UN called “the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.
This relates to the “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967” and “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem”.
In June 1967, Israel crushed some of its Arab neighbours in a six-day war, seizing the West Bank including east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
Israel then began to settle the 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 square miles) of seized Arab territory. The UN later declared the occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. Cairo regained Sinai under its 1979 peace deal with Israel.
The ICJ has also been asked to look into the consequences of what it described as Israel’s “adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”
Secondly, the ICJ should advise on how Israel’s actions “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what are the consequences for the UN and other countries.
The court will rule “urgently” on the affair, probably by the end of the year.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the court, waving flags and brandishing banners.
“I really hope all the combined efforts to pressure Israel, to demand a more humane policy, will finally lead to some steps to liberate the Palestinian people,” said the 27-year-old.
‘Despicable’
The ICJ rules in disputes between states and its judgements are binding although it has little means to enforce them.
However, in this case, the opinion it issues will be non-binding although most advisory opinions are in fact acted upon.
Israel is not participating in the hearings and reacted angrily to the 2022 UN request, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “despicable” and “disgraceful”.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that while advisory opinions are non-binding, “they can carry great moral and legal authority” and can eventually be inscribed in international law.
Warsaw, Poland – Alexei Navalny’s widow said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin killed her husband, as she vowed to carry on his work, three days after he died in an Arctic prison.
Holding back tears in a video address published Monday, Yulia Navalnaya said: “Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband, Alexei Navalny.”
Prison authorities said Navalny died after losing consciousness following a walk in his prison colony in Kharp, 2,000 miles (1,200 kilometres) northeast of Moscow inside the Arctic circle.
“Alexei died in a prison colony after three years of torment and torture,” Navalnaya said Monday.
Navalnaya, who was by her husband’s side for more than a decade in his fight against Putin, vowed to continue his work.
“The most important thing we can do for Alexei and for ourselves is to keep fighting, more desperately and more fiercely than before,” she said.
“We need to seize every opportunity to fight against war, against corruption, against injustice, to fight for fair elections and the freedom of speech, to fight to take back our country.”
She also vowed to uncover the people who she said had killed her husband.
“We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago… We will definitely find out exactly who carried out this crime and how it was carried out. We will name names and show faces,” she said.
The Kremlin said earlier on Monday that an investigation into Navalny’s death was ongoing and slammed Western governments that have said Putin carries responsibility for his death.
Russian authorities have so far refused to hand over Navalny’s body to his mother and lawyer, enraging his supports who have said it was a move by the “killers” to “cover their tracks.”
Israel will launch its long-threatened offensive against Rafah next month if the remaining hostages held in Gaza are not freed by the start of Ramadan, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said.
“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know — if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,” Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Ramadan, the holy month, is expected to begin on March 10.
The Israeli government has not previously specified a deadline for its planned assault on the city where the majority of the 1.7 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.
Fearing the potential for mass casualties, foreign governments and aid organisations have repeatedly urged Israel to spare Rafah, the last major Gazan city not invaded by ground troops during the four-month-old war.
Despite the mounting international pressure, including a direct appeal from US President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the war cannot be completed without pressing into Rafah.
Speaking at the same Jerusalem conference on Sunday, Netanyahu renewed his vow “to finish the job to get total victory” over “Hamas”, with or without a hostage deal.
Gantz added that an offensive would be carried out in a coordinated manner and in conversation with Americans and Egyptians to facilitate an evacuation and “minimise the civilian casualties as much as possible”.
But where civilians can safely relocate to on the besieged Gaza Strip remains unclear.
The comments come after weeks of ceasefire talks have failed to produce a deal, with key mediator Qatar acknowledging over the weekend that the prospects are dimming.
Washington, Israel’s key ally and military backer, has been pushing for a six-week truce in exchange for the release of the 130 hostages still estimated by Israel to be held in Gaza, including around 30 presumed dead.
Israel has said it believes many of those hostages, as well as the Hamas leadership, are holed up in Rafah.
The militants took about 250 people hostage during the October 7 attacks that triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
Italy may be the land that launched Cosa Nostra, but today it is one of the safest countries in Europe, with a murder rate well below its neighbours.
From the mid-19th century through to the 1990s, thousands of people died in mafia violence, from rivals or traitors cast in cement or fed to pigs, to judges, priests and witnesses killed for daring to defy the mob.
There were also the traumatic “Years of Lead” from the end of the 1960s to the 1980s, when armed groups from the extreme left and extreme right brought terror to Italy with bombings and assassinations.
The brutal murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro by the Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades in 1978 is burned into the national psyche, although the largest number of the estimated 400 victims of the period were killed by neo-fascists.
But when this bloody period ended, and after a crackdown on mafias which pushed them into less violent financial crime, the murder rate plummeted.
Back in 1990, there were 34 murders per one million inhabitants in Italy, compared to 24 in neighbouring France, according to UN figures.
In 2021-22, this had fallen to 5.5 per million in Italy and 11 in France, eight in Germany and 10 in the UK.
In Europe, only Norway and Switzerland have a murder rate lower or equal to Italy’s, while Latvia, the worst, has a rate 6.5 times higher.
“Homicides in general have decreased in the last 25 years, especially the percentage of men” — who previously were the main victims of mafias, noted Raffaella Sette, a sociologist at the University of Bologna.
Just 10 percent of murders each year are now blamed on organised crime.
“The mafias — the Camorra, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Cosa Nostra — have radically changed their way of operating,” said Gianluca Arrighi, a criminal lawyer who writes police novels.
“Today, they operate from a more economic point of view, buying up real estate, entering into companies,” he said.
Analysing the causes of violence across different countries is always risky, but Arrighi believes several factors are at play.
While Italy is poorer than its comparable EU neighbours, he says this is not always detrimental to social well-being, saying “goodwill” between people can help compensate for life’s difficulties.
“The higher the conflict in a society, the higher the number of murders, committed by people who are in some state of anger,” Arrighi told AFP.
The murder rate is, however, higher in the south of Italy, the poorest part of the country.
But Stefano Delfini, head of criminal analysis at the government’s department of public security, agrees that “our society is less violent”.
“The social fabric is more resistant, probably because of the presence of family values which mean difficulties are felt in a less harsh way.”
Another factor that drives violence in other countries is alcohol or drug use, particularly in France and the UK.
Italy does not keep data on this, but consumption of alcohol is the lowest in the EU, according to the World Health Organization.
There is rising awareness in Italy about femicides — killing of a woman or girl by a partner, spouse or family member — with 97 recorded in 2023, out of a total 330 murders.
A lack of harmonised data on femicides makes comparisons with other European countries difficult.
But statistics compiled by the World Bank for 2021 show a rate of 3.9 murders of women per one million people in Italy, well below the 6.8 in France and 8.0 in Germany.
Lilian was 20 when her newborn baby died of medical complications at a hospital in El Salvador, where abortion is a crime and even the suspicion of one can land a woman in jail.
Lilian was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison for “aggravated homicide” after her infant daughter passed away at a public hospital in Santa Ana in the country’s west in November 2015.
“I gave birth naturally, but I had a tear in my uterus,” recounted Lilian, now 28, who declined to give her full name to protect her family.
She was sedated for a procedure to fix the tear, and when she awoke, “I knew my baby was dead.”
Her nightmare did not end there.
“I was first accused of abandonment and neglect, but the prosecution called it ‘aggravated homicide’ and I was convicted in May 2016,” she told AFP.
A report found Lilian’s baby had died of neonatal sepsis, yet she spent eight years behind bars for ‘aggravated homicide’
Last year, a medical report concluded that her baby had died of neonatal sepsis, a finding that resulted in Lilian’s early prison release in November with the aid of women’s rights NGOs.
By then, she had already served eight years behind bars.
“If she (the baby) had been treated in time, she would not have died. I wouldn’t have wasted so many years of my life in prison,” said Lilian, whose other daughter was just two when it happened and was raised by her grandparents.
“I only saw her twice, I did not see her grow up.”
Lilian is the last of 73 Salvadorans to be released from prison in the last decade under a campaign by rights groups to free women serving sentences of up to 50 years for abortions, miscarriages, or birthing complications.
In Latin America, elective abortion is legal in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and Uruguay
Almost all are from poor backgrounds in rural areas where health services are precarious, said Arturo Castellanos, a social worker with the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion.
Alba Lorena Rodriguez, now 36, became pregnant at 21 after an acquaintance raped her.
Five months pregnant, she went into premature labor at home.
“I had to give birth to him myself, I fainted, I dropped” the baby, she told AFP.
A neighbor called the police, and Rodriguez, who has two other daughters, was arrested at the infant’s funeral.
“I felt the world come crashing down on me, because I knew I wasn’t going to see the girls, and they were punishing me for something I hadn’t done,” she said.
“The one who raped me was on the outside with his family and I (was)… imprisoned. The law is unfair,” said Rodriguez, who said she had no defense lawyer and no chance for anything like a fair trial.
Rodriguez served 10 years of a 30-year sentence before she, too, was released.
Both women chose to talk to AFP in the capital San Salvador, far from their own villages where the punishment has not stopped.
When the jailed women leave prison, “the community discriminates against them and stigmatizes them,” Castellanos said.
Alba Lorena Rodriguez, now 36, became pregnant after she was raped by an acquaintance at the age of 21
In Latin America, elective abortion is legal in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and Uruguay.
It is banned outright, without exceptions for health risks or other circumstances, in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Nowhere are the penalties as severe as in El Salvador, however.
Under the law there, abortion is punishable by two to eight years in prison. But the charge is often changed to “aggravated homicide,” which carries a penalty of 30 to 50 years.
Since 1998, when abortion was criminalized in El Salvador, 199 women have been sentenced.
Since Lilian’s release last year, none remain imprisoned, but seven women are awaiting trial, according to the Citizens’ Group.
“No one can give me back my lost time. I’m rebuilding the bond with my daughter,” said Lilian, who would like to see the law changed so that other women do not have to go through what she has.
But President Nayib Bukele, newly elected to a second five-year term with near-total control of parliament, has said there will be no change to abortion laws in the deeply Christian country.
“The struggle continues,” said Lilian.
Since abortion was criminalized in El Salvador in 1998, a total of 199 women have been sentenced
A New York judge ordered Donald Trump to pay $355 million over fraud allegations and banned him from running companies in the state for three years Friday in a major blow to his business empire and financial standing.
Trump — almost certain to be the Republican presidential nominee this November — was found liable for unlawfully inflating his wealth and manipulating the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.
Trump lashed out on social media calling the ruling a “Total SHAM,” the judge in the case “crooked” and the prosecutor who brought it “totally corrupt.” His legal team said he would “of course” appeal.
As the case was civil, not criminal, there was no threat of imprisonment. But Trump said ahead of the ruling that a ban on conducting business in New York state would be akin to a “corporate death penalty.”
Trump, facing 91 criminal counts in other cases, has seized on his legal woes to fire up supporters and denounce his likely opponent, President Joe Biden, claiming that court cases are “just a way of hurting me in the election.”
However, Judge Arthur Engoron said the financially shattering penalties are justified by Trump’s behavior.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron said of Trump and his two sons, who were also defendants, in his scathing ruling.
“They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money… Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways,” he added, referring to the perpetrator of a massive Ponzi scheme.
Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. were also found liable in the case and ordered to pay more than $4 million each, prompting Don Jr. to claim on social media that “political beliefs” had determined the outcome.
Engoron also extended the mandate of retired judge Barbara Jones as an independent monitor of Trump’s business affairs, as well as ordering the appointment of an independent director of compliance to the Trump Organization, with candidates to be nominated by Jones.
“Conditions that Judge Engoron imposed, such as having Judge Jones monitor the Trump companies, may be onerous. I do expect an appeal,” said Richmond University law professor Carl Tobias.
It was as a property developer and businessman in New York that Trump built his public profile which he used as a springboard into the entertainment industry and ultimately the presidency.
The judge’s order was a victory for New York state Attorney General Letitia James. She had sought $370 million from Trump to remedy the advantage he is alleged to have wrongfully obtained, as well as having him barred from conducting business in the state.
THE HAGUE: The UN’s top court Friday rejected South Africa’s request to put more legal pressure on Israel to halt a threatened offensive against the Gaza city of Rafah, saying it was “bound to comply with existing measures.”
Pretoria has already filed a complaint against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, alleging that its assault on Gaza amounts to a breach of the Genocide Convention.
The court has yet to rule on the underlying issue, but on January 26 it ordered Israel to ensure it took action to protect Palestinian civilians from further harm and to allow in humanitarian aid.
South African officials on Tuesday filed a further request to the court, asking it to order new measures in the light of Israel’s preparation of a new operation against Rafah.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.4 million population have sought shelter there from Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip.
The ICJ’s judges acknowledged that the recent developments “’would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences’” — citing remarks by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
But although Israel needed to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of Palestinians, that did not require “the indication of additional provisional measures,” they added.
Israel remained “bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said Order,” the ICJ ruling said.
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also took about 250 people hostage, around 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has since killed at least 28,775 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Israel’s foreign minister on Friday said the country would coordinate with Egypt before launching any military offensive in the southern border city of Rafah.
“We will operate in Rafah after we coordinate with Egypt,” Israel Katz told journalists on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where 180 dignitaries have gathered to discuss conflicts around the globe.
Fears had been growing for the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the north of Gaza to Rafah as Israeli troops advanced into the territory to wage war on Hamas.
But Israel is now planning a major operation in the overcrowded city. With the border to Egypt closed, nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are essentially trapped there.
Moscow, Russia – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died Friday in the Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year-term, Russia’s federal penitentiary service said.
Western governments immediately attacked the Kremlin over the death of the most outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny lost consciousness after a walk and could not be revived by medics, the prison service said.
“Navalny felt bad after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. Medical staff arrived immediately and an ambulance team was called,” it said.
“Resuscitation measures were carried out which did not yield positive results. Paramedics confirmed the death of the convict. The causes of death are being established.”
The 47-year-old was Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and won a huge following with his criticism of corruption in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation into the death.
Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh said his team had not been informed of his death.
“Alexei’s lawyer is now flying to Kharp,” where his prison colony is, she said in a post on social media.
Citing his spokesman, Russian news agencies reported that Putin had been informed of Navalny’s death.
Western governments and Russian opposition figures on Friday said the Kremlin was responsible for his death.
Latvia’s president said he had been “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”.
“The Russian government bears a heavy responsibility,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
France’s foreign minister said Navalny had paid with his life for resisting oppression.
Opposition leader
Navalny’s exposes, posted on his YouTube channel racked up millions of views and brought tens of thousands of Russians to the streets, despite Russia’s harsh anti-protests laws.
He was jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recuperating from a near-fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.
In a string of cases he was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges widely condemned by independent rights groups and in the West as retribution for his opposition to the Kremlin.
His return to Russia despite facing jail put him on a collision course with Putin, after Navalny blamed the poisoning attack in Siberia on the Kremlin.
“I’m not afraid and I call on you not to be afraid,” he said in an appeal to supporters as he landed in Moscow, moments before being detained on charges linked to an old fraud conviction.
His 2021 arrest spurred some of the largest demonstrations Russia had seen in decades, and thousands were detained at rallies nationwide calling for his release.
In prison, Navalny’s team said he had been harassed and repeatedly moved to a punitive solitary confinement cell.
He said guards had subjected him and other inmates to “torture by Putin”, making them listen to the president’s speeches.
From behind bars he was a staunch opponent of Moscow’s full-scale military offensive against Ukraine.
The Kremlin moved to dismantle his organisation, locking up his allies and sending dozens of others into exile.
Late last year he was moved to a remove Arctic prison colony in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia.
The last post on Navalny’s Telegram channel, which he managed through his lawyers and team in exile, was a tribute to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, posted on Valentine’s Day.
