The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya , reminded her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday that “there are no political prisoners in Spain”, after the head of Russian diplomacy compared the situation of the opposition Alexéi Navalni, imprisoned upon his return to Russia and victim of a poisoning last summer, with the Catalan independence politicians convicted of the procés .
Lavrov made this comparison after the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Affairs Josep Borrell demanded Navalni’s release and demanded that Russia investigate the attack on the opponent.
The Russian Foreign Minister criticized Borrell for the “unseemly rhetoric” of Western countries and reproached them for aspiring to teach Russia lessons when, he assured, there are cases of “politicized decisions” and mentioned the trial of the procés , although He erroneously pointed out that Germany and Belgium asked Spain to “annul the politicized decision.”
“The Spanish authorities responded: ‘We have our judicial system, and we do not even think of doubting the decisions we make in our courts, in accordance with our laws.” This is exactly what we want from the West in terms of reciprocity, “Lavrov added. In reality, Germany and France, among other EU states, stressed that the Catalan conflict must “be resolved in accordance with the Spanish legal and constitutional framework.”
“Without going into comparisons that are always hateful, I would like to remind Minister Lavrov that Spain is one of the 23 full democracies [that there are] in the world and there are only 23. [On the other hand] Russia is in 124th place out of 167 countries ”, Stated González Laya.
“I would like to recall that in Spain all citizens, all, have their rights and freedoms guaranteed and there are no political prisoners, there are political prisoners. And I hope that Alexéi Navalni will have the opportunity to participate and campaign in the next Russian elections as the Catalan pro-independence leaders who are serving time in Spain are doing ”, he added in an interview in RNE.
On February 2, Navalni, an anti-corruption activist and the opponent who has given the Russian President the most headaches in recent times, Vladimir Putin, was sentenced by a Moscow court to three and a half years in prison for repeatedly violating freedom Navalni returned to Russia on January 17, five months after leaving his country in a coma for Germany, where he was treated for poisoning with the nerve agent novichok, a neurotoxin developed as chemical weapon by the Soviet Union.
The Russian opponent directly accused Putin of this assassination attempt and Brussels has imposed new sanctions on several officials from Putin’s close circle in the activist’s case.
His arrest and subsequent conviction has sparked a wave of protests across Russia, harshly repressed by the security forces, which have arrested nearly 12,000 people in two weeks.
The imprisonment of the opposition leader, in a case that is also controversial, since everything derives from a sentence that four years ago the European Court of Human Rights considered “arbitrary and unfair” and condemned Moscow to compensate the opponent, has strained the relations of Russia with the international community, particularly the United States and the European Union, who have demanded his immediate release.
The very head of Spanish diplomacy has described Navalni’s arrest as “arbitrary” and has demanded his release from the Russian authorities.
