REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
- Amnesty International has stopped calling Putin critic Alexei Navalny a 'prisoner of conscience.'
- This is because of hateful statements he has made in the past, the human rights NGO told Insider.
- Amnesty says it still wants him to be released, saying he is being persecuted by Russia.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Amnesty International has said it will no longer call Putin critic Alexei Navalny a "prisoner of conscience" in its defense of him, arguing that the label should not apply because he advocated hatred in the past.
The NGO told Insider that it nonetheless still calls for his release, saying that he is being persecuted on trumped-up charges for his vocal opposition of President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny, the most significant domestic challenger to Putin, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in February, after being found guilty of violating the parole terms of a 2014 suspended sentence.
Navalny was poisoned - almost fatally - with the nerve agent novichok in August last year. He accuses Putin of being behind the attack.
In December, an investigation by Bellingcat and CNN linked the poisoning to Russia's FSB security agency, though Russian authorities have denied involvement.
Navalny was detained on his return to Russia on January 17 after medical treatment in Germany, and denied having broken the law. When asked in court why he had not attended his parole meetings, he said: "I was in a coma." A subsequent appeal, on February 20, failed.
His imprisonment sparked protests across Russia and a global outcry, including the support of Amnesty International.
Dmitri Lovetsky
Denis Krivosheev, deputy director of the NGO's Europe and Central Asia office, said in a Wednesday statement that Navalny "is being punished for daring to criticise President Putin and his government."
However, the NGO has taken an "internal decision to stop referring to Aleksei Navalny as a prisoner of conscience in relation to comments he made in the past," Krivosheev added, using an alternative spelling for Navalny's first name.
These include, a spokesperson clarified to Insider, old videos and social media posts in which Navalny purportedly described Central Asian immigration as a disease; referred to Georgians as "rodents;" and portrayed armed groups from the North Caucasus as insects. Insider has not been able to independently verify the materials.
The NGO said Navalny has not publicly retracted the purported comments, which "reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred," Krivosheev wrote.
The NGO's spokesperson said that the posts appear to have resurfaced as part of ongoing Russian government attempts to discredit Navalny and his activism.
Pro-Kremlin media outlets have, in recent weeks, attempted to discredit Navalny, suggesting Nazi sympathies and accusing him of being "unpatriotic" and "shady," according to the BBC.
Amnesty International emphasized that the hateful posts it has seen are old, and said it continues to fight for his release.
The decision not to call him a prisoner of conscience, which was taken early last week, "does not change our resolve to fight for his immediate release and for an end to his politically-motivated persecution by the Russian authorities," Krivosheev wrote.
"Aleksei Navalny has committed no crime. He is imprisoned solely for his peaceful anti-corruption research and campaigning, his political activism and his criticism of Putin's government," he wrote, adding that the NGO had last week demanded Navalny's release with a 200,000-signature petition to Russian authorities.
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