By Steve Sailer
02/26/2021
Earlier: Alex Navalny: Would A "Russian Dissident" Do Better In The "Free World?"
From the BBC:
Amnesty strips Alexei Navalny of âprisoner of conscienceâ status
By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, MoscowPublished 1 day ago
Amnesty International has stripped the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of his âprisoner of conscienceâ status after it says it was âbombardedâ with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he has made in the past and not renounced.
A spokesman for the human rights organisation in Moscow told the BBC that he believed the wave of requests to âde-listâ Navalny was part of an âorchestrated campaignâ to discredit Vladimir Putinâs most vocal critic and âimpedeâ Amnestyâs calls for his release from custody.
But on review, Amnesty International concluded that comments made by Navalny some 15 years ago, including a video which appears to compare immigrants to cockroaches, amounted to âhate speechâ which was incompatible with the label âprisoner of conscienceâ.
Alexei Navalny, who was almost killed in a nerve agent attack last year, is now serving a prison sentence widely seen as punishment for his opposition activism and big-splash investigations into the corrupt lives of Russiaâs rich and powerful.
âWe had too many requests; we couldnât ignore them,â spokesman Alexander Artemev told the BBC, explaining that the team initially discounted Navalnyâs previous statements â which he has not repeated â as ânot relevantâ in the light of his current, political persecution.
⌠She reposted Navalnyâs controversial videos after his arrest in January, describing him as an âavowed racistâ and accusing supporters of âwhitewashingâ his nationalism. âŚ
A second notorious video from the early 2000s shows Navalny dressed as a dentist, interspersed with images of immigrant workers, calling for the removal of âeverything that bothers usâ, like rotten teeth.