Thoughts regarding the Nawalny case
Dear lovers of peace and understanding,
I am obviously not privy to the inner workings of the Russian government nor am I an expert of Russian politics. Therefore I can only comment on the Nawalny case from a macro perspective adhereing to the ideas of prudence, logic and rule of law. Also I do not want to get lost in speculation over the many details which are involved in this case. Let me just sum up several experts‘ thoughts which I deem valid and trustworthy. We are talking customary procedures in the history of the Russian secret service or establishment dealing with individuals who posed a potential threat.
The Russian secret service or establishment either eliminated said individuals or tried to suppress public attention regarding these individuals. The Russian secret service usually carried out such missions very sucessfully. And by the way this is true for all secret services around the world. From a point of view of the concept of opposition in liberal democracies, we would rather think of the Russian political history as anarchistic movements in comparison.
As for Mr Nawaly many experts would consider him an opposition figure. In Russia there two types of opposition – systemic (CPRF, LDPR, Fair Russia, etc.) which is represented in the Duma and non-systemic (Navalny/FBK, etc.) During the elections Mr Nawalny was successful but in no way a real threat to President Putin. I do not want to elaborate on Mr Nawalny’s YouTube activities but I think that many would consider him a populist. And populism is very much frowned upon by most Western political leaders. However, interesting to see how in Nawalny’s case populism does not seem to be a real issue. But of course everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
Now let me get to the main point I want to make. First and foremost as modern liberal societies we are proud of having evolved from the dark ages without hardly any rights into states of law. What defines a state of law? Firstly, to give somebody the benefit of the doubt and secondly, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. These are the fundamentals for which so many have fought for so long. We accuse other states or political systems of not adhering to these very fundamentals. But if we wish to be true to these principles we need to apply them, especially when we feel it might be a grey area. Otherwise we are going to lose all credibility.
Mirjam Katharina Zwingli
