Alexey Navalny speaks up in defense of his jailed lawyers, calls on Russian legal community not to be silent

The imprisoned opposition politician Alexey Navalny has published a Telegram post in defense of his legal team, after three current and former Navalny defense attorneys were arrested and charged with extremism.

Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Liptser, and Igor Sergunin are all in custody at the notorious Moscow jail Matrosskaya Tishina, where they’re being held in the high-security segment commonly known as Kremlin Central.

Navalny calls the arrest of his trial lawyers a sign that “Putin’s decaying system” is “quaking in its boots.” The goal of their jailing, he writes, is to “punish them for their excellent work” and to “intimidate society and above all the lawyers who dare to defend political prisoners.”

Voicing his support for the attorneys and their families, Navalny called on the Russian legal community not stay silent and to act as a “united front” in defense of the jailed attorneys and the citizens’ right to legal defense in court.

Kobzev, Liptser, and Sergunin were arrested on October 13 and charged with complicity in organized extremism.

On October 16, a group of defense lawyers called for a strike among Russia’s legal practitioners, in support of the three attorneys taken into custody. Russia’s Federal Bar Association responded by discouraging the strike, insisting that there are “other lawful means” of expressing civil dissent.