#dissident

Among the released political prisoners are:

Oleg Orlov, a longtime dissident and the co-chair of Memorial, an organization created in 1989 to chronicle the USSR's human rights abuses and educate Russians about the history of political repression;

Sasha Skochilenko, an LGBTQ artist who was imprisoned in April 2022 for replacing price tags at grocery stores with data about Russian destruction in Ukraine, deemed treasonous under Russia's "fake news" law;

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political dissident who was fundamental in bringing about the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian human rights abusers, and who was poisoned twice by the KGB in attempted assassinations before being sentenced to 25 years in prison for "treason";

Evan Gershkovich, a young American journalist who was arrested in Russia while reporting for the Wall Streeet Journal in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for "espionage";

Paul Whelan, American former Marine who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor for "espionage";

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the war in Ukraine;

Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition activist who headed the pro-democracy organization Open Russia before being imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony infamous for its torture of prisoners;

Ilya Yashin, a young opposition politician who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for publishing YouTube videos about the war in Ukraine; when Russian authorities "encouraged" him to leave the country, he chose instead to stay;

Lilia Chanysheva, opposition activist and regional coordinator of Navalny HQ; in her final speech before the Russian court, she tried in vain to appeal to the judge's sense of empathy: "If you put me in jail for 12 years, I will be too old to bear a child. Give me a chance to be a mother!";

Kevin Lik, a dual German-Russian citizen who was arrested as a minor for "photographing military sites" shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; he was the youngest person ever to be convicted of treason in Russia;

Rico Krieger, a German man sentenced to death in Belarus for supposedly planting explosives on a railroad track to help the Ukrainian army;

Dieter Voronin, a dual German-Russian citizen and political scientist who was arrested in 2021 in connection to a treason case involving Russian journalist Ivan Safronov;

Patrick Schobel, a German man arrested in February 2024 at the Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg when customs officers found cannabis gummies in his luggage, in a scenario very similar to that of Brittney Griner;

German Moyzhes, a dual German-Russian citizen and lawyer who was charged with treason for helping Russians obtain European residency permits;

Vadim Ostanin, opposition activist and Navalny associate arrested in 2021 for his work with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation;

You do not become a dissident just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

(🔊 on) Patriot, Alexei Navalny's memoir, is available as an audiobook read by Matthew Goode.

A stunning and poignant account beautifully narrated 🧡

Here is a little extract - Alexei wakes up from a coma after having been poisoned and he remembers his wife pulling him through.

"But I will tell you what I do remember. Perhaps, actually, it can’t even be properly described as a remembering. It is more a collection of my very first sensations and emotions. It was so important to me, though, that it is now forever imprinted in my brain. I am lying there. I have already been brought out of the coma, but can’t recognize anybody and don’t understand what is happening. I can’t speak and don’t know what speaking is. My sole pastime is to be waiting for Her to come. Who She is I am uncertain. Neither do I even know what She looks like. If I manage to make out something with my unfocusing eyes, I’m unable to remember the picture. But She is different, that much is clear to me. So I just lie there and wait for Her. She comes and is the main person in the room. She straightens my pillow and makes it very comfortable. She doesn’t have a low, sympathizing voice but speaks cheerfully and laughs. She is telling me something. When She is near, my idiotic hallucinations retreat. It feels very good when She is there. Then She goes away and I feel sad, and wait for Her again. I don’t for a moment doubt there is a scientific explanation for this. Like, you know, I was apprehending the tone of my wife’s voice, my brain secreted dopamine, and I began to feel better. Each visit became literally therapeutic, and the effect of waiting for her enhanced the dopamine reinforcement. But no matter how impressive the scientific and medical explanation sounds, I now know for sure, simply from my own experience, that love heals and brings you back to life. Yulia, you saved me, and may this be included in the neurobiology textbooks."

This made me cry hot tears 🥺🥺

The audiobook is available on several platforms. More info ➡️ https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/445409/patriot-by-navalny-alexei/9781529943788

📷 My edit from Audible audiobook (Penguin Books). MG photograph by Uli Webber.