MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the arbitrary arrest and detention of Alexei Navalny

B9‑0092/2021

European Parliament resolution on the arbitrary arrest and detention of Alexei Navalny

(2021/2513(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia, notably of 17 September 2020 on the situation in Russia: the poisoning of Alexei Navalny[1],

– having regard to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (‘The European Convention on Human Rights’,

– having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the Russian Federation is a party,

– having regard to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in particular Chapter 2 on the Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen,

– having regard to the debate held by its Committee on Foreign Affairs on 10 September 2020,

– having regard to the Chemical Weapons Convention,

– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas on 20 August 2020, the leader of the Russia of the Future Party Alexei Navalny was hospitalised and left in a serious but stable condition after having been poisoned by a military-grade Novichok nerve agent in what is considered to have been a politically motivated assassination attempt by an elite toxins team in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB);

B. whereas on 22 August 2020, Alexei Navalny was transported to Berlin on a medical evacuation flight and put into a medically induced coma;

C. whereas on 17 January 2021, after five months of recovery in Berlin, Mr Navalny was detained on arrival in Moscow on charges of violating the terms of a suspended prison sentence for embezzlement;

D. whereas on 18 January, Russian prosecutors launched a new criminal case against Mr Navalny on charges of fraud related to transfers of money to various charities and has been remanded in custody until 15 February;

E. whereas the Russian authorities and political leadership are continuing their repressive and authoritarian regime against their own citizens, civil society, political opposition and media workers, who are often subject to acts of harassment, surveillance, physical attacks, threats, raids and searches of their offices and homes, slander and smear campaigns, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment, as well as violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly;

F. whereas the Russian Federation, under the obligation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, and as a full member of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has committed itself to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights;

G. whereas the use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances is completely unacceptable and is a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, a breach of international law, constitutes a security threat to us all and undermines the rules-based international order;

H. whereas Russia’s slide into more authoritarian rule has had a negative impact on EU-Russia relations and on stability in Europe and the world, and has forced the EU and Member States to come to a more common, strategic approach with regard to Putin’s Russia;

I. whereas the poisoning of Alexei Navalny represents a pattern of behaviour by Putin’s Russia that has affected several leading opposition figures, journalists, activists and foreign leaders, including, but not limited to, Boris Nemtsov (an opposition politician), Anna Politkovskaya (a journalist and civil activist), Sergei Protazanov (an opposition newspaper worker), Alexander Litvinenko (a defector), Viktor Yushchenko (the third President of Ukraine) and Sergei Skripal (a former Russian military intelligence officer) and Yulia Skripal (his daughter);

J. whereas Alexei Navalny is commonly seen as the main opposition figure contesting Putin’s rule and his oppressive kleptocratic system;

K. whereas state-sponsored assassinations and the physical elimination of opposition leaders, as was the case with Boris Nemtsov, have gone unpunished and the people accused of committing these outrageous crimes have been rewarded by the Kremlin;

L. whereas the reactions of Western democracies to these assassinations and other aggressive actions of the Russian Federation have not been sufficient enough to deter the Kremlin from continuing its hostile and oppressive policies;

M. whereas VP/HR Josep Borrell, Council President Charles Michel, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne have all condemned the arrest of Mr Navalny and urged his immediate release;

1. Strongly condemns the poisoning and arbitrary arrest of leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and considers such steps to be Putin’s tried and tested method of eliminating his main political opponents and personal enemies;

2. Expresses its sympathy to the family of Mr Navalny and calls for his immediate release from custody, for all charges to be dropped and for his prosecution to cease;

3. Regards his poisoning as an attack against democracy and political plurality in the Russian Federation;

4. Strongly condemns the arrest of approximately 60 journalists and supporters of Mr Navalny, who were present at the airport to greet him;

5. Calls for a joint and adequate international response to this case; stresses that the poisoning and arbitrary arrest of Mr Navalny represent crimes in breach of international law;

6. Condemns the offensive use of any military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia and underlines that this is not the first time in recent years that Russia has used nerve agents against dissidents and opposition figures;

7. Urges the European Council to adopt restrictive measures against those responsible for the arbitrary arrest and detention of Alexei Navalny, as well as against those responsible for the proliferation and use of chemical weapons;

8. Urges Member States to recognise the unreliability of the EU-Russia relationship and calls for a strategic reassessment of the EU’s relationship with Russia;

9. Deplores and condemns the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare tactics and calls on the Council to block Russia’s access to the SWIFT system and introduce further targeted sanctions;

10. Reiterates its position on the controversial Nord Stream-2 pipeline, which is a political project designed to reinforce EU dependency on Russian gas supplies and threatens the EU’s internal market as it is not in line with either EU energy policy or our strategic interests, and therefore needs to be stopped; calls for the EU institutions and the Member States, in particular those engaged in the contested pipeline, to fulfil this position in a spirit of solidarity and objection to aggressive Russian policies and take all the necessary measures to block this strategic project from the Kremlin;

11. Is concerned over the constitutional amendments that were recently adopted in a questionable referendum; is of the opinion that such changes to the Constitution of the Russian Federation serve as another worrying development proving that the Kremlin’s policy towards Russian civil society will remain oppressive and is designed to project its dominance over the post-Soviet world;

12. Takes note of the lowest ever level of public support for the Putin regime, with large numbers of protests taking place not only in the main cities in the European part of Russia, but also in the Far East, such as in the city of Khabarovsk, and of the upcoming elections to the Duma; is of the opinion that a united and determined response to Putin’s actions by the democratic West is the only way to prevent the regime in Russia from carrying out a brutal and bloody crackdown on the people of Russia who decide to protest and defend their rights to live in a free, democratic state where corruption is not rife;

13. Is of the opinion that in view of the continuation by the Russian Federation of its oppressive domestic policies and aggressive actions worldwide, including in Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Syria and Libya, the democratic West should strengthen its policies and take more determined actions commensurate with the challenges we face;

14. Urges an international investigation into the poisoning under the auspices of the International Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons and reiterates the Russian Federation’s responsibility to provide transparent, prompt and effective investigative support on the issue of who is responsible for the attack and to provide all necessary assistance for them to be brought to court;

15. Urges the Russian authorities to ensure accountability not only in Mr Navalny’s case, but also in the cases of all those suspected of having been poisoned and assassinated by Putin’s regime not only on the territory of the Russian Federation, but also on European Union soil and worldwide;

16. Calls on the international community to take the appropriate legal steps and use all available legal tools at its disposal, in view of the Magnitsky Act, to prevent and put a stop to the attacks against opposition politicians and civil society activists;

17. Considers such actions to likely have the intention of stamping out civil and political activism in the Russian Federation;

18. Reiterates that the EU should stand in full solidarity with Russian civil society and use the European human rights violations sanctions regime to sanction perpetrators of serious human rights violations, and calls on the Council to pursue its work on this matter without delay; stresses that perpetrators of human rights abuses should neither be granted EU visas nor should they be allowed to keep assets in Member States;

19. Urges the Russian Federation to address the questions raised by the international community urgently and to provide immediate, full and complete disclosure of its Novichok programme to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons;

20. Calls on the VP/HR to remain closely focused on Mr Navalny’s poisoning and its implications in Russia until those responsible are brought to justice;

21. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Presidential Executive Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Duma.