Talking solely to UN Information, she mentioned her workplace had raised repeated considerations over the previous months, amongst them, over Mr. Navalny’s deteriorating well being.
Arrested in 2021, the 47-year-old anti-corruption activist was serving a number of sentences on fees, together with extremism.
“It’s very surprising that this occurred right now lower than a month earlier than the Russian presidential election, and it actually sends shockwaves to all people in Russia and to all people all over the world who is worried in regards to the rising repression towards authorities critics within the Russian Federation,” she mentioned.
The penal colony the place Mr. Navalny died sits above the Arctic Circle, “which was used previously through the outdated gulag system of political repression in Russia”, with scant web entry and reduce off from the world, she acknowledged.
“The circumstances of detention beneath which Mr. Navalny was saved amounted to torture,” Ms. Katzarova mentioned, including that authorities have been inserting him in “punishment cells” enduring “actually harsh circumstances”.
‘Who’s subsequent?’
Citing different latest detention circumstances, she known as for the discharge of all political prisoners in Russia.
“I can not cease asking myself right now, who’s subsequent if the authorities proceed to attend and don’t…give liberty and freedom to all of the individuals which might be arbitrarily detained in Russia only for their rigorously held beliefs, peacefully towards the conflict on Ukraine or due to authorities insurance policies that they disapproved and voiced their considerations,” she mentioned.
“All of those individuals must be launched, all of those prisoners, so there isn’t a different surprising information of one other political prisoner and human rights defender being discovered lifeless in custody in Russia.”
Particular Rapporteurs
In Could, Ms. Katzorova was named the UN’s first Particular Rapporteur on human rights in Russia.
The Human Rights Council created the mandate, citing concern over “the numerous deterioration of the scenario of human rights within the Russian Federation, particularly the extreme restrictions on the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, peaceable meeting and affiliation…leading to systematic crackdowns on civil society organizations”.
Particular Rapporteurs and different rights consultants are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, are mandated to observe and report on particular thematic points or nation conditions, should not UN employees and don’t obtain a wage for his or her work.
