Navalni dedicates the Sakharov Prize to anti-corruption fighters around the world

The Russian opposition leader, Alexéi Navalni, he dedicated the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament on Wednesday to “anti-corruption fighters around the world.”

“I dedicate the award to fighters against corruption around the world: from journalists to lawyers, from officials – yes there are – to deputies and those who take to the streets to support that fight,” Navalni said on his Instagram account in his first statement since the award was announced.

Navalni, who is serving two and a half years in prison, wished them “perseverance and courage even in those moments when it is a little scary.”

While acknowledging that the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is a “great honor” and a “great responsibility”, he recalled that corruption is not only guilty of poverty and the degradation of the State, but is “the main threat to human rights ”.

“‘Money likes silence’, they keep repeating those who put in jail, torture and deprive people of the right to a fair trial and fair elections,” he said.

Navalni made his fame by denouncing illicit enrichment in the public administration, which made him the number one enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Before being convicted, the opponent published a video titled “Putin’s Palace” about the mansion that the president’s friends have allegedly built for him on the Black Sea and that one of his best friends, businessman Arkady Rotenberg, later admitted that it was of your property.

In particular, the jailed opponent thanked the groups of the European People’s Party and Renew Europe (liberals), and the European Parliament for creating the award at the time with the name of the inventor of the hydrogen bomb and Soviet activist, Andrei Sakharov .

When announcing the awarding of the award, the European Parliament underlined the “great courage” of Navalni, whose fight against the Kremlin “has cost him his freedom and almost his life.”

In addition, MEPs demanded the “immediate and unconditional release” of the opponent. The news was applauded by the West, but the Kremlin openly rejected the decision of the European Parliament.

Navalni, 45, considered the leader of the first free generation in Russian history, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his poisoning in August 2020.

The Russian opposition accuses the Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) of organizing a secret operation to poison Navalni with the toxic agent Novichok.

Navalni, 45, fell into a coma, but recovered in a Berlin clinic and returned to Russia last January, after which he was convicted in an old criminal case.