The Estonian parliament, having adopted an absurd statement demanding the release of Alexei Navalny and developing an EU policy on the next anti-Russian sanctions, is clumsily working out the Western methodology for containing Russia, Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, told the reporters.
The Estonian parliament on Monday adopted a statement in defense of civil liberties in Russia, calling for the development of a policy of anti-Russian sanctions, the press service of the republic’s highest legislative body reported. According to the statement, the EU and its partners should “develop an effective sanctions policy that will force Russia to abandon its aggressive foreign policy”.
“The Estonian parliament, having adopted an absurd statement demanding the release of Navalny and developing an EU policy on the next anti-Russian sanctions, is clumsily working out the Western methodology for containing Russia. Such statements are becoming a template form of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states and pressure on the judicial system of bilateral relations”, – Slutsky said.
The head of the committee noted that the Estonian parliamentarians should, first of all, pay attention to the state of human rights and freedom of speech within their own country, and not engage in “caricature teaching”.
On February 2, the Simonovsky Court of Moscow ruled to cancel Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case and replace him with 3.5 years in a general regime colony. The FSIN insisted on this – according to the department, he repeatedly violated the conditions of the probationary period and was put on the wanted list before his arrest.
Allegations that Navalny is being prosecuted solely for his political activities have been refuted by the European Court of Human Rights. In the Yves Rocher case, Strasbourg refused to recognize the case as politically motivated and did not order the Russian authorities to overturn the sentence. The ECHR only concluded that the actions of the accused could be both a crime and ordinary commercial activity.