dissidents

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In Posthumous Memoir, Navalny Shares the 'Important Thing'

Acceptance is key, late Russian dissident writes in Patriot

(Newser) - In a memoir released eight months after he died in prison, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny never loses faith that his cause is worth suffering for while also acknowledging he wished he could have written a very different book. "I so much do not want my book to be...

Critic Tweets a Period to Iran Leader, Gets 12 Years

Lawyer argues Hossein Shanbehzadeh's sentence stems from false allegations

(Newser) - Iranian blogger Hossein Shanbehzadeh is no stranger to incarceration. A longtime critic of Iran's leadership, he was jailed in 2019 for online comments insulting supreme leader Ali Khamenei. But he's now been hit with a 12-year sentence "for doing next to nothing," Vice reports. According to...

Freed Dissidents Aren't Thrilled With All Terms of Their Release

Ilya Yashin, Andrei Pivovarov say they want to return home to Russia, probably can't

(Newser) - With last week's historic prisoner swap, Russian President Vladimir Putin did more than secure the release of his assassin friend . He also appears to have conveniently "rid himself of some of his most persistent critics," Politico reports, noting several Russian dissidents whisked from prisons inside Russia have...

Bad News for Dissidents in Hong Kong
Bad News for
Dissidents in
Hong Kong
Mar 19, 2024 11:00 AM CDT

Bad News for Dissidents in Hong Kong

New law gives government sweeping powers to stifle dissent

(Newser) - Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously approved a new national security law Tuesday that grants the government more power to quash dissent, reports the AP , widely seen as the latest step in a sweeping political crackdown triggered by pro-democracy protests in 2019. The Safeguarding National Security Bill will expand the authorities' ability...

Navalny Ally Attacked With Hammer
Navalny Ally
Attacked
With Hammer
Mar 13, 2024 2:00 AM CDT

Navalny Ally Attacked With Hammer

Leonid Volkov was chief of staff for Russian opposition leader before his death

(Newser) - A longtime ally of Alexei Navalny has been attacked outside his home in Lithuania. Leonid Volkov was in his yard Tuesday night when he was beaten with a hammer and sprayed with tear gas, the Guardian reports. His car window was also smashed. Volkov, who was Navalny's chief of...

Russian Activist Imprisoned, Says 'I Don't Regret Anything'

Oleg Orlov, 70, of human rights group Memorial is hit with 2.5 years behind bars in Russia

(Newser) - A veteran human rights campaigner who criticized the war in Ukraine was convicted Tuesday by a Moscow court of "repeatedly discrediting" the Russian military and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Oleg Orlov, 70, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, had rejected the case...

Navalny's Wife Says Putin Will Be Held Accountable
Putin Blasted for 'Brutality'
After Navalny's Death
THE RUNDOWN
Feb 16, 2024 9:31 AM CST

Putin Blasted for 'Brutality' After Navalny's Death

Opposition figure's wife says Putin will be held accountable 'very soon'

(Newser) - World leaders reacted with shock and anger Friday to the reported death of Alexei Navalny , Russia's most prominent opposition figure, in an Arctic prison colony. Authorities did not immediately disclose the cause of the 47-year-old's death, but family members and supporters had long said that Navalny was being...

Alexei Navalny Dead at 47
Alexei Navalny
Is Dead at 47
Feb 16, 2024 5:53 AM CST

Alexei Navalny Is Dead at 47

Putin critic was being held in Arctic penal colony

(Newser) - Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic is dead, according to Russia's prison service. The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said Alexei Navalny "felt unwell" during a walk Friday and "almost immediately lost consciousness," the BBC reports. Efforts to resuscitate him proved unsuccessful and emergency doctors...

Authorities: Hells Angels Were Hired to Kill Iranian Defector

Murder-for-hire plot was never carried out, authorities say

(Newser) - Authorities from the US and UK say they foiled a plot involving two members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who were hired to kill an Iranian defector and his female companion. Naji Sharifi Zindashti, 49, is accused of running an "assassination ring" that targets Iranian dissidents across the...

Separatist Leader Who Criticized Putin Gets 4 Years

Igor Girkin supported Ukraine war, but called Russian president a 'nonentity'

(Newser) - A Russian former leader of separatist rebels in Ukraine, who called Vladimir Putin a "cowardly mediocrity," was convicted of extremism on Thursday, reports the AP . The Moscow court imposed a four-year sentence on Igor Girkin, who was the most prominent leader of Russian-backed separatist fighters in Ukraine's...

Navalny Speaks From Prison: 'I Am Your New Santa Claus'

Russian dissident releases a statement a day after his whereabouts were revealed

(Newser) - "It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world," said Alexei Navalny's chief strategist Monday of the prison colony above the Arctic Circle where the Russian opposition...

Russian Dissidents: We've Located Navalny

Opposition leader found in remote penal colony after 3 weeks of radio silence

(Newser) - Associates of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that he has been located at a prison colony above the Arctic Circle nearly three weeks after contact with him was lost . Navalny, the most prominent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is serving a 19-year sentence on charges of...

As Sentence Is Upheld, Navalny Describes Prison Hell

Or, perhaps, the opposite: extreme cold

(Newser) - A Moscow appeals court has upheld the 19-year sentence handed down in August to Alexei Navalny, who will now be transferred to a different maximum security facility to serve the lengthiest of the three sentences he's been given so far. The Putin critic had been serving a 9-year sentence...

Chinese Defector: I'll Wait 'Months' in Airport If I Have to

Tiananmen Square critic Chen Siming says he feels safe in Taiwan, though he wants to go to US

(Newser) - A Chinese dissident known for his commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is currently holed up in a Taiwan airport, pleading for asylum from the United States, or Canada if the US won't take him. Chen Siming has been hunkered down since Friday at Taoyuan International Airport near...

Chinese Dissident Planned Jet Ski Escape for Years

Kwon Pyong told friends of his plan to reach South Korea as early as 2019

(Newser) - The man who fled from China to South Korea on a jet ski last week reportedly planned his escape for years. A friend in the US tells the New York Times that Kwon Pyong, a 35-year-old human rights activist critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping, "felt depressed living in...

Before He Wrote Unbearable Lightness, He Fled Homeland

Czech dissident and author Milan Kundera, who became a thorn in Communists' side, dies at 94

(Newser) - Milan Kundera, the Czech author who was cast out of the Communist Party and became best known for penning The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died. The 94-year-old passed away Tuesday in Paris "after a long illness," a spokeswoman for the Czech library that kept Kundera's personal...

Anti-War Dad Separated From Child Is On the Run in Russia
Anti-War Russian Dad
Arrested in Belarus
UPDATED
Mar 30, 2023 7:18 AM CDT

Anti-War Russian Dad Arrested in Belarus

Aleksei Moskalyov fled house arrest hours before he was sentenced to penal colony

(Newser) - Aleksei Moskalyov, an anti-war Russian father who fled house arrest hours before he was sentenced to two years in a penal colony Tuesday, has been arrested in Belarus, his lawyer says. Dmitry Zakhvatov tells Reuters that Moskalyov's arrest in Minsk, more than 400 miles away from his hometown south...

On Russia's Wanted List: Pussy Riot Member

Nadya Tolokonnikova faces unspecified criminal charges

(Newser) - Russian authorities have put a member of the Pussy Riot punk group on a wanted list for criminal suspects as the Kremlin works to stifle political dissent. Russian news outlet Mediazona discovered an entry for Nadya Tolokonnikova in the Russian Interior Ministry's database of wanted individuals on Wednesday. The...

Belarus Dissident's Girlfriend Hears Her Fate in Court

Sofia Sapega gets 6 years behind bars for inciting social hatred; Roman Protasevich's trial pending

(Newser) - Update: It's been a year since the plane on which Belarusian dissident journalist Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend were flying was forced to land so the pair could be detained by Belarus. Now, the latter has heard her official fate. Sofia Sapega, 24, was sentenced Friday by a...

Belarus Activist Hospitalized After Stabbing Himself in Court

Stsiapan Latypau reportedly was told his family would be prosecuted unless he confessed

(Newser) - A Belarus activist has been hospitalized after stabbing himself in the neck with a pen during a court hearing in Minsk, a rights group said. Stsiapan Latypau underwent surgery and is in satisfactory condition, the BBC reports. He's charged with being behind opposition social media, which he denies. The...

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