Amnesty International strips ‘prisoner of conscience’ label from Alexei Navalny after reviewing past statements
Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny might be losing some international support.
Days after losing an appeal over a recent prison sentence, the frequent subject of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ire has now lost his Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience” status.
According to the BBC, the organization initially thought requests to “de-list” Navalny were part of a coordinated campaign to discredit him and “impede” efforts to get him released from custody. However, the organization reviewed Navalny’s past remarks, including some from 15 years ago, and concluding some amounted to “hate speech.
“[Amnesty International is] “no longer able to consider Alexei Navalny a prisoner of conscience given the fact that he advocated violence and discrimination and he has not retracted such statements,” the organization said.
The organization said a bulk of the complaints started coming in after Katya Kazbek, a popular RT columnist reposted the videos on Twitter. Kazbek in the past has stated Navalny is a stooge of the U.S. government, a claim many other pro-Putin and state media outlets have begun hammering. RT, a state-controlled news network, is considered a propaganda arm of Putin’s government.
According to the BBC, the staff at Amnesty International are uncomfortable with the implications of what delisting Navalny means, but are limited themselves since he has not retracted previous anti-immigration comments and the organization has strict protocols.
A spokesperson for the organization noted that Nelson Mandela was stripped of his “prisoner of conscience” label in the 1960s after he called for Blacks to use force against the white apartheid regime in South Africa.
The organization said it plans to continue advocating for Navalny’s release.
