The Russian dissident politician has been repeatedly arrested and tried for his protests. Each time, he has called on Europe's human rights court for help. But will that path remain open after Thursday's decision?
Image: Reuters/V. Kessler
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The European Human Rights Court is set to decide on Thursday whether Russian anti-corruption activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny's frequent detentions at the hands of Russian authorities were politically motivated and whether they were legal. The 42-year-old activist accuses authorities of purely political motives for detaining him seven times at demonstrations between 2012 and 2014.
On March 4, 2012, Vladimir Putin was elected to his third term as Russian president. Putin's return to the the presidency — after four years as prime minister — was accompanied by months of protests, the likes of which the country had not experienced in years. Navalny was already a leading opposition figure, and was among the thousands of activists who gathered on Moscow's Pushkin Square on March 5 to protest against Putin. Once the rally ended, several hundred protesters remained in the square. Police forces moved in, violently dispersed the crowd, and arrested Navalny. He was freed later that night and forced to pay a minor fine.
From blogger to opposition leader
Navalny has called on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg to judge the legality of this and six other arrests. The outspoken Kremlin critic will be in Strasbourg on Thursday when the Grand Chamber announces its verdict, though it was briefly unclear on Tuesday if he would be able to attend: Authorities suddenly prevented him from leaving Russia, citing allegedly unpaid court dues. However, after footing the bill, he was clear to depart.
In the past few years, the 42-year-old has transformed from a somewhat nationalistic dissident into a powerful opposition leader. He is especially proficient at mobilizing young people to join his cause; his well-produced investigative videos exposing the misdeeds of Kremlin-friendly elites reach millions on the internet. He was barred from running in the 2018 presidential race due to a corruption conviction. Navalny believes he was excluded for political reasons, but Strasbourg's ECHR did not share his interpretation, saying he had access to a fair trial.
While judges in Russia have mostly sided against Navalny or rejected his appeals, the ECHR has often backed the dissident, albeit not on all issues.
Alexei Navalny is one of Russia's most prominent opposition leaders, having spearheaded protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been imprisoned in Russia since 2021.
Image: Imago Images/Itar-Tass/S. Fadeichev
Face of Russia's opposition
The lawyer-turned-political campaigner has been among the most prominent figures of Russia's opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny came to prominence in 2008, when his blog exposing malpractice in Russian politics and among the country's major state-owned companies came to public attention. Revelations published on his blog even led to resignations, a rarity in Russian politics.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/TASS/V. Sharifulin
Disputed parliamentary elections
In 2011 Navalny was arrested for the first time. He ended up spending 15 days in prison for his role at a rally outside the State Duma in Moscow. A recent parliamentary election victory for Putin's United Russia had been marred by instances of ballot stuffing, reported by demonstrators on social media. Upon his release, Navalny pledged to continue the protest movement.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Stenin
Second jail term
After being reelected president in 2012, Putin ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to launch a criminal inquiry into Navalny's past. The following year the campaigner was charged and sentenced again, this time for five years, for alleged embezzlement in the city of Kirov. However, he was released the following day pending affirmation from a higher court. The sentence was later suspended.
Image: Reuters
Anti-Kremlin platform grows
Despite being embroiled in legal troubles, Navalny was allowed to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. A second-place finish behind Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin was seen as an overwhelming success and galvanized the Russian opposition movement.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Navalny takes to social media
His anti-Kremlin rhetoric led Navalny to be banned from appearing on Russian state-owned television. That forced him to deliver his political message over social media and his blog. His talent for public speaking, punchy use of language and humorous mockery of Putin and his loyalists mobilized a legion of young followers.
Image: Alexei Navalny/Youtube
Presidential ambitions
In December 2016, the opposition leader announced the formal start of his campaign to run for the Russian presidency in March 2018. However, repeated accusations of corruption, which his supporters say are politically motivated, ultimately barred him from running for public office.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Kudryavtsev
Moscow's biggest protests in 6 years
In February 2017, anti-corruption rallies across dozens of Russian cities led to the arrests of over 1,000 demonstrators, including Navalny. The protests, believed to have been the largest in the Russian capital since 2012, were spurred by a report published by Navalny linking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to a property empire valued at billions of euros. Navalny was released 15 days later.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman for Alexey Navalny's campaign
Physically assaulted
Navalny was assaulted and hospitalized in April 2017 after being hit in the eye with a chemical green dye. The attack permanently damaged his right cornea. Navalny accused Russian authorities of stopping him from seeking medical treatment abroad due to the embezzlement conviction against him. He was eventually permitted by the Kremlin human rights council to travel to Spain for eye surgery.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/E. Feldman
Repeated arrests
In 2018, Navalny was jailed for 30 days. After his release in September, he faced another 20-day stint. In April 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia had violated Navalny's rights by holding him under house arrest for most of 2014 during the Kirov embezzlement case.
Image: Reuters/M. Shemetov
Alleged poisoning
In July 2019, only weeks after being released from a 10-day jail sentence, Navalny was again jailed for 30 days for violating Russia's strict protest laws. The opposition leader accused Russia of poisoning him with an allergic agent while in jail.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/navalny.com
Raids and frozen assets
Using YouTube and social media, Navalny had amassed a following of millions by late December 2019. Then police raided his Anti-Corruption Foundation headquarters (pictured), detaining him in the process. His staff said officials wanted to confiscate their tech equipment. Just a few months later, in March, Navalny reported that his bank accounts and those of his family members had been frozen.
Image: Reuters/FBK Handout
A plane — and a coma
On August 20, Navalny's spokesperson announced the activist became violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital in Russia's Omsk and later evacuated to Berlin's Charite clinic (pictured). Doctors said he was in a coma. Navalny's associates claimed he had been poisoned and pointed to previous attacks on the activist.
Image: Reuters/C. Mang
Back from the brink
Navalny was taken out of the coma less than three weeks later and was said to be responsive. Not long afterwards, he was posting on Instagram, saying he was slowly regaining strength following weeks of only being "technically alive." The German government said labs in France and Sweden both confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny had promised to return to Russia and he did so, despite warnings that he would be arrested. He was taken into police custody shortly after arriving in Moscow. The dissident had said he was "not afraid of anything." He was ordered to spend two years and eight months in a penal colony for violating terms of his probation while recovering in Germany from his poisoning.
Image: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Further charges and years behind bars
Since being imprisoned in 2021, Navalny has faced even more charges and trials: in 2022, he was sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court, charges his supporters say are fabricated. Appearing via video from prison during a court hearing this spring, Navalny said he was now being charged with new alleged crimes that would further extend his time in prison.
Image: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo/picture alliance
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A legal back-and-forth
Navalny's latest ECHR court case, initiated in November, focuses on the partial blocking of his website after it was used to publish research on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska's alleged links to Paul Manafort, onetime manager of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Prior to this case, the ECHR had already ruled that Navalny's arrest at a previous rally had been unlawful. The court also sided with Navalny's appeal against his two convictions for corruption. And agreed with him when he appealed the 2015 decision of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) not to issue him a passport.
But his biggest legal victory so far dates back to 2016: ECHR judges ruled that he was not afforded a fair trial in 2013, when he was convicted for allegedly embezzling money from a Russian timber company. Even though Russia's supreme court later turned the conviction into a suspended sentence and fine, a subsequent court case reinstated the initial verdict.
Navalny's current case regarding his numerous arrests in Russia cites five distinct articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the odds that the judges will largely agree him are high. In February 2017, one ECHR court has already ruled that Russia had infringed against Article 5 (a person's right to liberty and security), Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights. At the request of both Russia and Navalny, the ECHR's Grand Chamber will make a final decision in the case.
The court has, however, rejected Navalny's request to examine the alleged breach of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) and Article 18 (permitted restrictions). He had hoped to utilize both to prove that Russia's conduct against him has been "politically motivated.” In a previous, albeit not yet final, verdict, the court judged that Russia should pay Navalny over €60,000 ($68,900) in damages and refund his expenses. It is expected that the ECHR's Grand Chamber will come to a similar decision.
Strasbourg's judges will most likely again side with Navalny on many issues. But it remains to be seen for how much longer he and his compatriots will be able to call on the ECHR.
Russia has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the Council of Europe (CoE) given the temporary suspension of its CoE delegation following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. In response, Russia ceased funding the CoE. In the current tense political climate, the dispute could escalate and Russia might leave the body for good. If that happens, it would no longer abide by ECHR rulings — which could spell further trouble for human rights defenders in Putin's Russia.
