Imprisoned Navalny, Kara-Murza, and Yashin declare October 30 Political Prisoner Day, urging supporters to join them in hunger strike

The imprisoned Russian politician Alexey Navalny, sentenced to 19 years on unfounded extremism charges, is trying to revive the Political Prisoner Day, first declared in 1974 by the dissidents Kronid Lyubarsky and Alexey Murzhenko while in a Soviet labor camp.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Navalny wrote in a Telegram post, the former Political Prisoner Day devolved into a memorial day for the victims of political repressions in the USSR. But times have changed, Navalny argues, and now that Russia has political prisoners once again, the Political Prisoner Day must also return.

“The main gesture of solidarity on that day,” Navalny writes, “was a symbolic one-day hunger strike, in which political prisoners took part along with many people who were free.”

“Russian power is returning to its roots, with arrests, repressions, secret trials, and wanton lawlessness masquerading as justice,” Navalny observed, adding that Russia’s opposition should also revive its own traditions of resistance.

Navalny’s message was signed by several other politicians and activists currently imprisoned in Russia: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vadim Ostanin, Liliya Chanysheva, Daniel Kholodny, and Ilya Yashin. All of them have been designated as political prisoners by human rights advocates.

Collectively, they urge all political prisoners and those who want to express solidarity with them to join in a day-long hunger strike on October 30.