The prosecution and sentencing of Vadim Kobzev, Aleksei Liptser and Igor Sergunin is a shameful attempt to silence those who dared to defend Aleksei Navalny and make his voice heard even from behind bars

Reacting to the sentencing of the lawyers of the late Russian prisoner of conscience Aleksei Navalny, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said:

“The prosecution and sentencing of Vadim Kobzev, Aleksei Liptser and Igor Sergunin is a shameful attempt to silence those who dared to defend Aleksei Navalny and make his voice heard even from behind bars. By targeting lawyers for merely doing their job, the Russian authorities are dismantling what remains of the right to legal defence and abusing what is a criminal justice system only in name. We call on the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release these individuals and drop all charges against them. Their only ‘crime’ was standing up for justice and human rights.”

By targeting lawyers for merely doing their job, the Russian authorities are dismantling what remains of the right to legal defence and abusing what is a criminal justice system only in name

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director

Background

On 17 January, the Petushinsky District Court of Vladimir Oblast sentenced Vadim Kobzev to five years and six months, Aleksei Liptser to five years, and Igor Sergunin to three years and six months in prison. Additionally, the court imposed a three-year ban on practicing law on all three of them.

The three lawyers were arrested in October 2023 on charges of participating in an “extremist organization,” an arbitrary designation which the Russian government applied to Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) in 2021. The prosecution alleged that the lawyers acted as “intermediaries,” passing messages from Aleksei Navalny to other FBK members, thereby facilitating communication within what the authorities deemed an “extremist network.”

In November 2023, the Russian financial regulator added all three lawyers to the national registry of “extremists and terrorists.” Their persecution fits into a broader pattern of the unabashed misuse of “anti-extremism” legislationby the Russian authorities to target critics of the state for peaceful activism. Over the past several years, numerous individuals affiliated with the late Aleksei Navalny and his movement, as well as other government critics, have faced arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, and severe penalties under these pretexts.