Asia
Pakistan’s Imran Khan and his wife appear in court and plead not guilty in another graft case
Pakistan's imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife appeared in a court near Islamabad on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty in a graft case alleging they accepted the gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for large sums of laundered money, officials said.
The case is the second to indict Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi over acts of corruption allegedly committed while the former cricket star turned Islamist politician was in office.
Prosecutors accuse the couple of using their family’s charity to set up a university on land gifted to them by the tycoon, Malik Riaz. In turn, the businessman was allegedly given 190 million British pounds ($240 million) in laundered money that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities.
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, is currently serving multiple prison terms and has some 170 legal cases pending against him on charges ranging from corruption to inciting people to violence and terrorism. The couple has also been convicted earlier in a graft case on charges of selling state gifts while in office.
Khan has denied wrongdoing and has insisted since his arrest last year that all the charges against him are a plot by his rivals to keep him from returning to office.
He was barred from running in the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which his rivals from the Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, emerged as the largest in the National Assembly or lower house of the parliament. Khan's rival, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is now on track to form a coalition government when the parliament meets for its inaugural session on Friday.
On Tuesday, Khan was brought before the judge at the high security court set up inside the Adiala Prison, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi just outside Islamabad, where he is serving his prison terms concurrently.
Bibi, who is imprisoned at the couple's home in Islamabad, was brought to the court in a security convoy. The couple pleaded not guilty after the latest charge was read to them and the judge adjourned the proceedings till next month, Khan's legal team said.
Separately, Khan and Bibi have also been sentenced to seven years in prison each on charges that their 2018 wedding violated marriage laws, allegedly because insufficient time had lapsed between Bibi's previous divorce and their union.
India seeks to boost rooftop solar, especially for its remote areas
Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party condemned Tuesday's proceedings as “one sided” and complained because Khan's legal team has had limited access to him and because the media have been barred from covering the trial.
Khan has so far been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.
Khan is appealing all the convictions.
Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls
More than two-thirds of the U.N. Security Council’s members demanded Monday that the Taliban rescind all policies and decrees oppressing and discriminating against women and girls, including banning girls education above the sixth grade and women’s right to work and move freely.
A statement by 11 of the 15 council members condemned the Taliban’s repression of women and girls since they took power in August 2021, and again insisted on their equal participation in public, political, economic, cultural and social life -- especially at all decision-making levels seeking to advance international engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.
Guyana’s U.N. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett read the statement, surrounding by ambassadors of the 10 other countries, before a closed council meeting on U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ conference with more than 25 envoys to Afghanistan on Feb. 18-19 in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Afghan civil society representatives, including women, participated in the Doha meeting, which the council members welcomed. The Taliban refused to attend, its Foreign Ministry saying in a statement that its participation would be “beneficial” only if it was the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.
While the Taliban did not attend the meetings, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo did meet with Taliban officials based in Doha, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. DiCarlo also briefed council members at Monday’s closed meeting.
The Taliban have not been recognized by any country, and the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan last year warned the de facto rulers that international recognition as the country’s legitimate government will remain “nearly impossible” unless they lift the restrictions on women.
Read: World Food Program appeals for $19 million to provide emergency food in quake-hit Afghanistan
The 11 council nations supporting the statement -- Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States – underscored that there can only be sustainable peace in Afghanistan if its political process is inclusive and the human rights of all Afghans are respected including women and girls.
Four Security Council nations didn’t sign on to the statement – Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria.
The Taliban refused to attend the Doha meeting. A Foreign Ministry statement said participation would only be beneficial if the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban call their administration, are the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.
Secretary-General Guterres told reporters in Doha that among participants — also including representatives of the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — there was “total consensus” on requirements for Afghanistan to be integrated into the international community.
Read: UN is seeking to verify that Afghanistan's Taliban are letting girls study at religious schools
To reach this “endgame,” he said, Afghanistan must not be “the hotbed of terrorist activities that impact other countries,” its institutions must include diverse groups including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras, and human rights must be respected especially the rights of women and girls.
Guterres said to a certain extent there is currently “a kind of situation of the chicken and the egg.”
“On one hand, Afghanistan remains with a government that is not recognized internationally and, in many aspects, not integrated in the global institutions and in the global economy,” he said. “And on the other hand, there is in the international community a perception that inclusivity has not improved; that the situation of women and girls and human rights in general has in fact deteriorated in recent times.”
The secretary-general said one objective of the meeting with the envoys was “to overcome this deadlock” and develop a roadmap in which the international community’s concerns and the Taliban’s concerns are “taken into account simultaneously.”
A Security Council resolution asked Guterres to appoint a U.N. envoy after consultations with all parties, member states, the Taliban and others.
Guterres said the participants decided he should initiate consultations “to see if there are conditions to create a U.N. envoy that might be able not only to have a coordinating role in relation to the engagements that are taking place but that can also work effectively with the de facto authorities of Afghanistan.”
“I will initiate immediately those consultations,” the U.N. chief said.
Read more: U.S. sanctions officials from Afghanistan to China on declaration of human rights anniversary
Former Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif's daughter and close aide takes over top provincial post
The eldest daughter and close aide of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday became the country’s first-ever female chief minister in eastern Punjab province.
Mariam Nawaz, 50, was elected chief minister in a 220-0 vote in her favor, beating out rival for the post, Rana Aftab, who was nominated by the Sunni Ittehad Council, an ally of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Opposition lawmakers supporting Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in 2022, boycotted the session of the 371-member Punjab Assembly.
Nawaz thanked God in televised remarks and promised she would equally serve those who voted for her and those who opposed her. “The doors of my heart and office will remain open for the opposition as well,” she said.
Pakistan's former premier Sharif and allies agree to form a coalition
Nawaz's appointment was largely expected following the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which her father's Pakistan Muslim League party, or PML-N, emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly or lower house of the parliament and in the Punjab Assembly.
The PML-N, which was initially trailing candidates representing Khan's supporters — the former cricket player turned Islamist politician was barred from running — emerged last Friday as the largest single winner in the election after receiving 24 additional seats — 20 from out of the 60 seats reserved for women, as well as four seats out of 10 reserved for minorities. Nine independent members have also joined the PML-N.
The PML-N is now heading into a coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, with Nawaz's uncle, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on a firm path to becoming the next prime minister, his second term in office.
The Sharifs are one of the top two families that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades. Nawaz Sharif, who served three times as a premier, was ousted from power in 2017 in a graft case. Khan, who replaced Sharif in 2018, granted him permission to travel to London for medical treatment following a court order.
Pakistan's premier defends the delay in releasing election results and denies the vote was unfair
Sharif came back to Pakistan from self-imposed exile abroad and returned to politics ahead of the elections. In her father's absence, Nawaz had led political campaigns and taken over his work.
However, many critics say Nawaz's rise is yet another case of nepotism. Earlier, one of Shehbaz Sharif's sons, Hamza Shehbaz, had also served as the chief minister in Punjab.
Many in Myanmar consider fleeing to Thailand to escape conscription into an army they despise
Thwel, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, saw very few options left to her after Myanmar’s military announced it is implementing conscription to fill its ranks.
“As a person living in this country, I only have two options: to go abroad illegally or die here,” Thwel told The Associated Press by phone while traveling to a border area to try crossing into Thailand with a small group of like-minded people.
Some observers believe a mass exodus of young talent is taking place and could become a social problem, with their exit heightening the instability that followed the military takeover that now amounts to a civil war.
Thwel, whose home in Myanmar’s southern Mon state is the scene of occasional combat between the army and resistance forces, spoke on condition she be called by only one name as protection from the military authorities. Like many professionals, she joined the Civil Disobedience Movement that was formed to oppose military rule after the army’s 2021 seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since then, the army's manpower has been stretched thin by increasing pressure from surprisingly durable pro-democracy resistance forces and ethnic minority armed organizations,
Over the past four months, opposition groups scored significant victories and seized strategically important territory in northern Shan state where Myanmar borders China, and in Rakhine state in the west.
On Feb. 10, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, chair of Myanmar’s ruling military council, ordered the 2010 conscription law be activated to replenish the ranks that have been depleted by the struggle to quash a nationwide pro-democracy insurgency. All healthy men ages 18-35 and women 18-27 are required to register for two years of military service.
Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine.
Of Myanmar's 56 million people, about 14 million — 6.3 million men and 7.7 million women — are eligible for military service, according to Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government. The government will draft 60,000 people a year, with an initial batch of 5,000 to be called up soon after the traditional Thingyan New Year celebration in mid-April, he said.
After an uproar over the initial announcement, Zaw Min Tun said there is no plan to call women into military service yet — meaning schoolteacher Thwel might actually be in the clear for the time being.
But many people are actively looking for ways to escape.
The street in front of Thailand’s embassy in Yangon has been filled with visa applicants queued up to get numbered appointment tickets. Overwhelmed, the embassy announced it would accept only 400 visa appointments per day, and they must be made online. According to the Thai Foreign Ministry, some 7,000 Myanmar nationals have applied for visas, Thailand’s Bangkok Post newspaper reported Thursday.
The body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mother, aide says
Each day at the state passport office in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, 4,000-5000 people were lining up to get one of the 200-250 daily appointment tickets. Two women died and one was injured after they fell into a ditch in a pre-dawn rush to get a coveted early place in line.
A 32-year-old news translator from Yangon said he made a snap decision to leave the country after the conscription announcement, and flew to Thailand a few days later. Like almost all persons willing to discuss their plans, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of the legal consequences.
He said he was very concerned because serving in the military is like entering a labyrinth with no way back out, giving the example of his uncle, who joined the army for a five-year enlistment but was not allowed to leave for more than 40 years.
A 26-year-old journalist who has been working covertly in Mandalay, said the conscription law made his situation untenable. He also spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of the legal consequences; more than 150 journalists were arrested after the army sized power, and more than one-third remain locked up, according to the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.
“I tried my best to stay inside the country in the past few years while other journalists were fleeing abroad or to areas controlled by ethnic minority armed groups," he said. "But, this time, we can’t hide anywhere. We can’t stay out of sight. There is no choice.”
He is also planning to flee to Thailand.
The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent think tank, said conscription could trigger a mass exodus, more widespread violations of human rights and increase corruption and extortion at all levels. It anticipates that young people close to areas where armed conflict is active could join the ethnic minority armed forces and pro-democracy resistance groups.
There were around 160,000 soldiers before the army takeover, the institute said, and there are now fewer than 100,000 due to casualties, desertions and defection.
Like schoolteacher Thwel, a 35-year old doctor from Yangon had joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. He was consequently restricted from treating patients, since activist medical workers are boycotting government hospitals, while private clinics and hospitals risk closure if they hire them. They are also blacklisted by immigration authorities, making them unable to get passports to legally leave the country.
Professionals such as medical doctors and engineers face a higher age limit for conscription — 45 for men and 35 for women — and their term of service is three years.
"For me, the announcement of the law was the impetus to make a decision to go abroad,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety.
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The doctor said he was exploring the best ways flee abroad or to border areas controlled by the ethnic armed groups.
Ethnic resistance groups such as the Arakan Army from Rakhine state and the Shan State Progress Party have invited people to take refuge in territory they control. The Karen National Union in Kayin state in the southeast has similarly promised help.
Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the leading political body of the pro-democracy resistance, declared that the public is not required to comply with the conscription law, urging them instead to intensify their participation in the fight against army rule.
The Yangon region branch of its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, announced a recruitment drive and said they received about 1,000 online applications within 12 hours.
More than 1,000 working-age Myanmar nationals are believed to be crossing into Thailand every day since conscription was announced, said Moe Kyaw of the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association-Thailand, an aid association for Myanmar migrant workers.
“It is not a good sign that human resources and intellectuals leave a country,” he said.
He echoed other aid workers in predicting that with new waves of people entering Thailand, generally illegally, there will be increased human trafficking and related crimes, and there will be friction as the new entrants compete for jobs with as many as 3 million already employed Myanmar migrant workers.
India seeks to boost rooftop solar, especially for its remote areas
Just a few years ago, someone who wanted to install a rooftop solar connection in India faced getting multiple approvals, finding a reliable company to install the panels and spending heavily before seeing the first surge of clean energy.
But that's changing. The government has streamlined the approvals process, made it easier for people to claim subsidies and pushed mountains of cash — including $9 billion announced this month — to encourage faster adoption of technology that's seen as critical for India to reach its clean-energy goals.
“We had to get 45 signatures to set up a small rooftop solar connection in 2021,” said Shreya Mishra, CEO of Mumbai-based Solar Square, one of India’s largest rooftop solar companies. “Today it's almost instantaneous.”
For this sun-soaked country, growth in rooftop solar can't come soon enough. India last year became the world's most populous nation, with 1.4 billion people and a hunger for energy that is rising fast.
Yet India, one of the world's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases, is also highly vulnerable to climate change. Its people are affected by deadly floods, extreme rainfall, extreme heat, prolonged droughts and cyclones with increasing frequency. A study earlier this year found that nine out of India’s 28 states will be among the world's hardest-hit regions due to climate change by midcentury.
India has grown its clean power rapidly in recent years and has the fourth-most installed renewable power, trailing only China, the U.S. and Brazil. It had 180 gigawatts as of December, enough to power about 18 million homes, with nearly half from solar.
But most of that solar power comes from numerous football-field-sized solar farms. Less than 15% comes from rooftop arrays, and India has so far managed to set up only 11 gigawatts of rooftop solar. That's far less than the 40 gigawatts it hoped to have by 2022.
Energy experts say rooftop solar is essential to bring power to remote areas, where it can be installed cheaply where it's needed and avoid the cost of transmitting the energy over long distances.
India's latest push was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said the $9 billion would provide “free electricity” for up to 10 million homes.
Neeraj Kuldeep of the New Delhi-based think tank, Council on Energy, Environment and Water, has tracked rooftop solar for nearly a decade. A report from CEEW last year found that only 50% of Indians are likely aware of rooftop solar as an energy solution and most of those who were aware thought it was too expensive. The report released last November recommended subsidies for consumers who can benefit from small rooftop solar arrays but can't afford them.
Kuldeep said consumer awareness about rooftop solar is one key to driving growth. Others are efficient governments at both the federal and state level, and finding the right “fit” for a particular user's power needs.
Experts say another is getting buy-in from state-owned electricity companies who sometimes see rooftop solar as a threat to their profits.
Kuldeep said that's short-sighted. The companies can often actually make more money if they help install rooftop solar in a low-consumption home, he said. That's because they cut their transmission and distribution costs to carry power to a house with a subsidized bill that already earns them little profit.
Installations have also risen since the government launched a national rooftop solar portal in 2022 that consumers can use to claim and steer government subsidies directly to their bank account, say experts and rooftop solar companies.
Mysun, a rooftop solar company based in New Delhi, offers potential buyers a “solar calculator” on its website where they can enter their location and current electricity costs to see what kind of savings they could expect. CEO Gagan Vermani said it's about simplifying the process for potential customers.
“We need to start thinking of (rooftop solar) with consumer needs in mind rather than thinking of it as building solar infrastructure,” he said.
Those who are already hooked up with panels on their roofs tout the benefits of cheaper electricity and greater agency over their own power.
“It is a little expensive but it’s totally worth it,” said Ruchika Chahana, who lives in the affluent Greater Kailash neighborhood in New Delhi. Chahana installed rooftop solar in her home nine months ago at a cost of nearly $5,000. She said her summer electricity bills have fallen to about $50 a month, from $200, and her family feels great about “doing something to save the planet."
In Bengaluru, Satish Mallya saw rooftop solar as essential both to save money and avert carbon emissions. He took the lead in installing 65 kilowatts of solar atop the 120-unit apartment complex he lives in, and the building's electricity costs have dropped $700 a month.
That 2020 installation was “challenging” because of bureaucratic hurdles, said Mallya, who serves as vice president of a citywide group that represents apartment dwellers and owners. He's helped many others set up their own rooftop solar connections in the years since, and says the process has gotten easier.
Mishra, of Solar Square, said she's seeing a big increase in interest in a technology that she calls “a key part of India's energy future.”
“As an Indian and an entrepreneur, I'm extremely proud of seeing this getting built up,” she said. "I think building energy infrastructure is the greatest nation-building thing we can do.”
Isolate military junta in Myanmar, protect its people: UN Rapporteur
Myanmar’s military junta is becoming an even greater threat to civilians, even as it shows further signs of weakness and desperation through the imposition of mandatory military service, warned a UN expert on Wednesday.
Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, called for stronger international action to protect increasingly vulnerable populations.
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"Now, more than ever, the international community must act urgently to isolate the junta and protect the people of Myanmar," he said.
“While wounded and increasingly desperate, the Myanmar military junta remains extremely dangerous,” said the UN expert.
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“Troop losses and recruitment challenges have become existential threats for the junta, which faces vigorous attacks on frontlines all across the country. As the junta forces young men and women into the military ranks, it has doubled down on its attacks on civilians using stockpiles of powerful weapons," he said.
On 10 February, the junta issued an order that purportedly brought the 2010 People’s Military Service Law into force. Citizen men aged 18 to 35 and citizen women aged 18 to 27 are eligible for conscription, though “professional” men and women can be conscripted up to the ages of 45 and 35 respectively.
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Those who evade military service or help others evade military service are subject to up to five years of imprisonment.
A junta spokesperson has indicated that the junta intends to conscript 5,000 individuals per month beginning in April.
In the face of inaction by the Security Council, the Special Rapporteur urged the states to strengthen and coordinate measures to reduce the junta’s access to the weapons and financing it needs to sustain its attacks on the people of Myanmar.
“Make no mistake, signs of desperation, such as the imposition of a draft, are not indications that the junta and its forces are less of a threat to the people of Myanmar. In fact, many are facing even greater dangers," said the UN expert.
“By seeking to activate the conscription law, the junta is trying to justify and expand its pattern of forced recruitment, which is already impacting civilian populations around the country. In recent months, young men have reportedly been kidnapped from the streets of Myanmar’s cities or otherwise compelled into joining the military’s ranks. Villagers have reportedly been used as porters and human shields,” said Andrews.
"Young people are horrified by the possibility of being forced to participate in the junta’s reign of terror. The numbers fleeing across borders to escape conscription will surely skyrocket.”
The Special Rapporteur also called for an infusion of humanitarian aid for impacted communities, including through the provision of cross-border aid.
“I implore the international community to provide increased levels of humanitarian aid to those impacted by the conflict while supporting leaders committed to a democratic transition process that affirms human rights, transparency, and accountability,” he said.
Landslide in eastern Afghanistan leaves at least 5 people dead and 25 missing, Taliban official says
A landslide triggered by heavy rain and snowfall buried more than two dozen houses in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least five people and leaving more than 20 others missing, a provincial official said Monday.
The landslide Sunday night destroyed or damaged more than two dozen houses in Noorgram district, according to Samiulhaq Haqbayan, the Taliban-appointed director of information and culture in Nuristan province.
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Rescuers have recovered five bodies and were searching for at least 25 others trapped under the destroyed houses, Haqbayan said.
The heavy rains and snowfall were continuing, he added.
Nuristan province, which borders Pakistan, is mostly covered by mountainous forests.
Indian farmers reject government offer and say they will carry on marching to New Delhi
Indian farmers who have been protesting for a week to demand guaranteed crop prices have rejected a proposal from the government, and say they will continue their march to the capital New Delhi.
The protesting farmers began their march last week, but their efforts to reach the city have been blocked by authorities, who have used tear gas and heavily barricaded entry points into the capital to avoid a repeat of 2021 farmer protests when they camped on the outskirts for over a year.
Late Monday night, farm leaders said they refused the government’s offer of a five-year contract for guaranteed prices for a set of crops, including pulses, maize and cotton.
The government’s proposal made Sunday was “not in the interest of farmers," Jagjit Singh Dallewal, one of the leaders spearheading the protest, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
He added that the farmers — tens of thousands of whom have been camping out some 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the capital as they waited for the government offer — will resume their march to New Delhi on Wednesday.
Read: Protesting Indian farmers clash with police for a second day as they march toward the capital
“We appeal to the government to either resolve our issues or remove barricades and allow us to proceed to Delhi to protest peacefully,” Dallewal said.
The protests renewed a movement from over two years ago, in which tens of thousands of farmers hunkered down on the edges of New Delhi for over a year against agriculture laws which the government ended up repealing.
This time, the farmers who rode on tractors from neighboring Haryana and Punjab states say the government has failed to make progress on other key demands from the previous protests.
At the heart of the latest protests is a demand for legislation that would guarantee minimum support prices for all farm produce.
Read: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opens stone-built Hindu temple in UAE ahead of India's elections
Currently, the government protects agricultural producers against any sharp fall in farm prices by setting a minimum purchase price for certain essential crops, a system that was introduced in the 1960s to help shore up food reserves and prevent shortages.
The farmers say a guaranteed minimum support price for their crops would stabilize their incomes. They are also pressing the government to follow through on promises to double their income, waive their loans and withdraw legal cases brought against them during the earlier 2021 protests.
Several meetings between farm leaders and the government have failed to end the deadlock. Piyush Goyal, one of the ministers negotiating with the farmers, told PTI that some of the demands of the farmers were “deep and policy-driven," which made it more difficult to find a resolution.
The protests come at a crucial time for India, where national elections are expected in the coming months and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party is widely expected to secure a third successive term.
Farmers are particularly important to Modi’s base. Northern Haryana and a few other states with substantial farmer populations are ruled by his Bharatiya Janata Party.
Read more: Thousands of Indian farmers are marching to New Delhi to renew their demands over crop prices
The Russian opposition just lost its brightest star. What does it do now?
Alexei Navalny was asked four years ago what he'd tell Russians if he were killed for challenging President Vladimir Putin.
“You’re not allowed to give up,” he told a documentary maker. “If they decide to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong and we need to use this power.”
Russia's prison agency announced Friday that Navalny had died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. His death sparked accusations around the world that he had been killed.
WHAT DOES THE OPPOSITION DO NOW?
Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of way s. The Russian opposition has lost its brightest star with Navalny's sudden death in a prison colony. Now the question on everyone’s mind: What does it do now?
Most of Russia’s opposition is either dead, scattered abroad in exile or in prison at home. Remaining opposition groups and key political figures have different visions about what Russia should become, and who should lead it. There is not even an anti-war candidate on the ballot to give Putin a token challenge in next month’s election for a sixth term.
THE END OF DISSENT?
With Navalny's elimination from the picture, many are wondering if this is the end of political dissent in Russia.
“Alexei Navalny was a very bright and charismatic leader. He had the talent to ignite people, to convince them of the need for change,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who spent a decade in prison in Russia on charges widely seen as political revenge for challenging Putin’s rule in the early 2000s.
Read: Nerve agents, poison and window falls. Kremlin foes have been attacked or killed over the years
“This is a very difficult loss for the Russian opposition,” he told The Associated Press after his death.
Graeme Robertson, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of a book about Putin and contemporary Russian politics, says the biggest problem that has plagued the Russian opposition “is that it has been unable to break out from small liberal circles to attract support from the broader population.”
Khodorkovsky, who lives in London, is one of several Russian opposition politicians trying to build a coalition with grassroots anti-war groups across the world and exiled Russian opposition figures. They include Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister and Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in Russia for treason after criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But Navalny’s team, and the Anti-Corruption Foundation he founded, are not a part of it.
“We constantly tell the guys from the Anti-Corruption Foundation ... that it would be great if we all met not only in front of television cameras, but sat down at the table,” Khodorkovsky said in another interview before Navalny’s death, referring to a television debate in January hosted by the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd.
While Navalny was the first leader to build a national Russian opposition, there were other opposition factions who didn’t like him or his organization.
Read: Navalny’s wife expresses skepticism over reports from Russian government sources
Before his death, there were public and heated disagreements on social media between members of his team and other politicians about how they could challenge Putin in March’s upcoming election.
PUTIN CONSOLIDATES POWER
Meanwhile, the Russian leader has continued to consolidate his grip on power, cracking down on dissent at home, imprisoning critics of the war in Ukraine, and silencing independent media.
Squabbling among the opposition, “doesn’t help,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia & Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. But, even if the opposition were united, he questioned whether “given the instruments of coercion, repression and intimidation available to the Russian state, what difference, at least in the short term, would that make?”
THREE DECADES OF PUTIN
Putin is eyeing at least another six years in the Kremlin, which means he could effectively rule Russia for almost three decades.
Russia’s remaining opposition leaders and activists, largely outside the country, are now grappling with the question of how to mount an effective challenge to the Kremlin. That would mean breaking through state propaganda to reach Russians inside the country and offer them an alternative to the Kremlin’s vision of the future.
It is a difficult task, one which even Navalny struggled with after he returned to Moscow in February 2021 to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.
Shortly after his return while he was in jail, his team released a social media investigation into corruption that was viewed millions of times. It provoked a series of anti-graft protests across Russia but the police brutally cracked down and detained thousands of people.
While Navalny’s team continued to publish successful investigative reports, they ultimately suspended the protests and said they would switch to different tactics.
Although Navalny had his finger on the pulse, and his team succeeded in widely publicizing the investigation, the anti-corruption message ultimately failed to produce political change inside Russia, Robertson said, because most Russians “know their country is badly governed and that their elite is corrupt, but they don’t see it being any other way."
In the three years since Navalny was jailed, Russian authorities have introduced more laws tightening freedom of speech and jailing critics, often ordinary people, sometimes for decades.
Khodorkovsky said the response to Navalny’s “murder” should be to join forces and continue work started before Navalny’s death, trying to convince ordinary Russians to protest in any way they can during March’s presidential election.
He called on Russians to protest by writing Navalny’s name on the ballot paper during the election. The Russian Anti-War Committee, backed by Khodorkovsky and other politicians, is also asking Russians to attend “Noon against Putin,” an idea which was supported by Navalny in early February, which suggests using the pretext of the vote as an opportunity to gather and protest at 12 p.m. on 17 March.
OPPOSITION IN EXILE
In the meantime, the Russian opposition faces a future largely in exile without one of its brightest leaders.
It will be incredibly difficult, but Russia's exiled politicians say they are determined that the hope of democracy in their country does not die along with Navalny.
“Putin," Khodorkovsky said, “must understand that he can kill his political opponent, but not the very idea of a democratic opposition.”
Nerve agents, poison and window falls. Kremlin foes have been attacked or killed over the years
The attacks range from the exotic — poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent — to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window.
Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways.
On Friday, Russian authorities said President Vladimir Putin's key political challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison colony. The details of what happened are unknown; Navalny's team says it has no official confirmation of his death and Russian authorities say they are establishing why he died. His allies previously accused Russian officials of trying to poison him with a nerve agent in 2020.
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Assassination attempts against foes of Putin have been common during his nearly quarter century in power. Those close to the victims and the few survivors have blamed Russian authorities, but the Kremlin has routinely denied involvement.
There also have been reports of prominent Russian executives dying under mysterious circumstances, including falling from windows, although whether they were deliberate killings or suicides is sometimes difficult to determine.
Some prominent cases of documented killings or attempted killings:
POLITICAL OPPONENTS
In August 2020, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane landed in the city of Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized in a coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Berlin, where he recovered.
His allies almost immediately said he was poisoned, but Russian officials denied it. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden confirmed Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, which he reported had been applied to his underwear.
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Navalny returned to Russia and was convicted last August of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison. It was his third conviction with a prison sentence in two years. He said the charges were politically motivated.
On Friday, Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service said Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived, but he could not be revived. The service said his cause of death was "being established."
In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, a founder of the protest group Pussy Riot, fell severely ill and also was flown to Berlin, where doctors said poisoning was "highly plausible." He eventually recovered. Earlier that year, Verzilov embarrassed the Kremlin by running onto the field during soccer's World Cup final in Moscow with three other activists to protest police brutality. His allies said he could have been targeted because of his activism.
Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza survived what he believes were attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017. He nearly died from kidney failure in the first instance and suspects poisoning but no cause was determined. He was hospitalized with a similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed he was poisoned.
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Kara-Murza survived, and his lawyer says police have refused to investigate. Last year, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison. In January he was moved to a prison in Siberia and placed in solitary confinement over an alleged minor infraction.
The highest profile killing of a political opponent in recent years was that of Boris Nemtsov. Once deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, Nemtsov was a popular politician and harsh critic of Putin. On a cold February night in 2015, he was gunned down by assailants on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin as he walked with his girlfriend in a death that shocked the country.
Five men from the Russian region of Chechnya were convicted for his killing, with the gunman receiving up to 20 years. But Nemtsov's allies said that was an attempt to shift blame from the government.
FORMER INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency, the FSB, became violently ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. He died three weeks later.
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Litvinenko had been investigating the shooting death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya as well as the Russian intelligence service's alleged links to organized crime. Before dying, Litvinenko told journalists the FSB was still operating a poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era.
A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin's approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
Another former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned in Britain in 2018. He and his adult daughter Yulia fell ill in the city of Salisbury and spent weeks in critical condition. They survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.
Authorities said they both were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent Novichok. Britain blamed Russian intelligence, but Moscow denied any role. Putin called Skripal, a double agent for Britain during his espionage career, a "scumbag" of no interest to the Kremlin because he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.
JOURNALISTS
Numerous journalists critical of authorities in Russia have been killed or suffered mysterious deaths, which their colleagues in some cases blamed on someone in the political hierarchy. In other cases, the reported reluctance by authorities to investigate raised suspicions.
Politkovskaya, the journalist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta whose death Litvinenko was investigating, was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 — Putin's birthday. She had won international acclaim for her reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The gunman, from Chechnya, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Four other Chechens were given shorter prison terms for their involvement in the murder.
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Yuri Shchekochikhin, another Novaya Gazeta reporter, died of a sudden and violent illness in 2003. Shchekochikhin was investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents. His colleagues insisted that he was poisoned and accused the authorities of deliberately hindering the investigation.
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN AND HIS LIEUTENANTS
A plane crash last August which killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and top lieutenants of his Wagner private military company came two months to the day after he launched an armed rebellion that Putin labeled "a stab in the back" and "treason." While not critical of Putin, Prigozhin slammed the Russian military leadership and questioned the motives for going to war in Ukraine.
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A U.S. intelligence assessment found that the crash that killed all 10 people aboard was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to U.S. and Western officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. One said the explosion fell in line with Putin's "long history of trying to silence his critics."
Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, rejected allegations the Kremlin was behind the crash. "Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie," he told reporters.
In his first public comments after the crash, Putin appeared to hint there was no bad blood between him and Prigozhin. But former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said: "Putin has demonstrated that if you fail to obey him without question, he will dispose of you without mercy, like an enemy, even if you are formally a patriot."
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