AFPC-USA Responds to the Death of Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny
The following is a statement from the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (AFPC-USA) in response to the news that Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, lawyer, anti-corruption activist, and political prisoner, died in FKU IK-3, a faraway Arctic penal colony.
The statement is as follows:
The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA joins freedom-loving people around the world to express our shock, sadness and outrage upon learning of the death of Russian activist and dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, 47, on Friday, February 16, in a remote Arctic prison.
Navalny was a towering champion for democracy, peace, the rule of law and the opposition to the brutal dictatorial regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin. We send our condolences to Yulia Navalny, Mr. Navalny’s widow, to his family and friends, and to all the Russian people who saw him as their courageous democratic leader, a fighter for freedom, truth and justice.
We condemn the murderous Putin regime that jailed him and is wholly responsible for his death in a state run by Putin’s corrupt officials, thugs and a greedy elite who keep their power through repression, intimidation, incarceration and the assassination of their opponents, including journalists who seek to tell the truth about Putin’s Russia, at home or from exile. We support the democracy movement in Russia that Navalny championed, and the journalists who he worked with.
We condemn the Russian state responsible for his death and call on international authorities to work tirelessly to hold Putin accountable and punish all those responsible. Navalny shined the light of hope and freedom on Russia and today that light may be dimmer, but not gone. The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA vows to support its citizens and journalists everywhere who continue to boldly and bravely tell the truth about Putin’s regime, from its bloody, unprovoked assault on Ukraine to its crackdown on the voices and movement that would hold the Putin regime accountable for its crimes against humanity.
As President Biden said of Navalny, “Even in prison, he was a powerful voice for the truth."
