Alexei Navalny's evacuation from Siberia was organized by Berlin-based NGO the Cinema for Peace Foundation. Since 2002, it's drawn support from major Hollywood stars.
Artist Ai Weiwei installed thousands of life jackets at the Cinema for Peace gala venue in 2016 to raise awareness about the migrant crisisImage: Imago Images/POP-EYE/C. Kratsch
The 44-year-old was in a coma after a suspected poisoning, although Russian doctors put his illness down to a possible blood sugar disorder.
The founder of the NGO behind his evacuation, Jaka Bizilj, said private donations had paid for the flight — a Bombardier Challenger chartered by a Nuremberg-based firm — as well as for the medical staff on board.
Bizilj told DW that plans for the evacuation were set in motion on Thursday after members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova and Pyotr Verzilov appealed to the NGO for help.
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"I got a call from Nadia Tolokonnikova from Los Angeles, from Pussy Riot, and from Pyotr from Moscow, asking me if we could help a dear friend, Alexei, who'd got poisoned too," Bizilj told DW in an interview. The foundation had flown Verzilov himself to Berlin in 2018 after he was poisoned and fell ill.
Bizilj stressed that although the governments of Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron had been briefed, Navalny's airlift to Berlin had been a "private" activity.
"It was very expensive to do it in at very short notice, but in the end, during the process, without having to think much about it, private persons came forward and took over [costs]," he said, adding that the charter flight would not burden taxpayers.
Bizilj also described Kavalny's family's relief that safe passage was found. "They are relieved to be in a first-class hospital, to have good treatment," he said. "And obviously now it will be a question of what the doctors can do and have to do. ... This will probably be a long procedure and there is a long way to go. As we have heard from the doctors, if there would not have been this emergency landing in Omsk, if they would’ve tried to fly on to Moscow, he would have died."
Film producer and concert promoter Jaka Bizilj Image: Getty Images/M. Hitij
Star power
Born in Slovenia in 1971, Bizilj is a film and show producer with a list of connections that reads like a who's who of Hollywood and world diplomacy — including names like Mikhail Gorbachev, Sharon Stone and Ai Weiwei.
He launched the Cinema for Peace Foundation in 2002 to "influence through films the perception and resolution of global social, political, and humanitarian challenges of our time — and especially to oppose war and terror," according to the organization's website.
Its Genocide Film Library includes material on the 1992-95 Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict. The NGO also runs screenings for schools and students, including films such as South Africa's "Themba — a Boy Called Hope," about a football novice who loses his mother to HIV/AIDS.
Since its founding, the NGO has held an annual fundraising and awards gala to coincide with the Berlin Film Festival. The event often draws Hollywood stars and prominent political figures — last year actor Charlize Theron and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder were among the guests.
In 2016, Ai Weiwei draped guests in gold rescue blankets to highlight the horrors of Mediterranean migrant drowningsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Sophie Albers Ben Chamo
Rock star and rights activist Bob Geldof was once quoted as describing the foundation's galas, which aim to showcase work dedicated to peace and justice, as an "Oscars with brain."
Berlin Charite: The storied history of the hospital treating Alexei Navalny
Berlin's Charite once again finds itself at the center of an international drama involving the poisoning of a Russian dissident. Regularly ranked one of Europe's top hospitals, it also has a somewhat checkered past.
Image: picture-alliance/Bildagentur-online/Joko
Ranked Germany's top hospital
Berlin Charite was established in 1710 as a center for plague patients and 100 years later it grew to house a medical university. From then on, its campus has handled patients as well as research students. More than half of Germany’s Nobel Prize winners for medicine or physiology worked at the hospital.
Image: picture-alliance/Bildagentur-online/Joko
Reputation damaged during Nazi era
During the Nazi regime, many physicians from Charite were involved in ethical crimes related to medicine. The Charite hospital was also responsible for autopsies on Jewish suicide victims and the executed resistance fighters of July 20th. After the war, the hospital fell under the jurisdiction of the German Democratic Republic, as it was located in East Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/K. H. Spremberg
Temporary Ebola hub
Berlin Charite became a European care hub during the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa in 2015. A South Korean medic, who was working in Sierra Leone and became infected with the virus, was flown to Berlin for treatment. The patient was sent to Berlin at the request of the South Korean government, which said his anonymity would be better kept there.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T. Brakemeier
Lead role in coronavirus crisis
Charite was the first hospital to detect a locally transmitted coronavirus infection in Germany, back in March. Since then, it has gained prominence as Christian Drosten, director of Charite’s Institute of Virology, has played a public role in policy during the COVID-19 health crisis and been a scientific voice during the pandemic, through his many public appearances and weekly podcast.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Gateau
Notable politician patients
The hospital has attracted international attention by offering support to prominent international politicians. In March 2014, Ukrainian opposition politician and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko was treated at Charite. She suffered a total of three slipped discs, which she had acquired during her two and a half years imprisonment.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Poisoned Russian activist
In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, an associate of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot and staunch Vladimir Putin critic was flown from Moscow to Berlin, after showing symptoms of poisoning. Charité head doctor Kai-Uwe Eckardt treated the activist. Verzilov's case is said to have set the precedent for Alexei Navalny's supporters to consider Berlin for his treatment.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Navalny the latest high-profile patient
Vladimir Putin critic and prominent Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was flown to Charite Berlin from a hospital in Omsk, Russia, to be treated for suspected poisoning. The activist traveled on a chartered flight paid for by the NGO Cinema for Peace. Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those who pushed for a speedy transfer for Navalny to Germany.
