UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk pointed to the "
prolonged detention
" of Russian opponent Vladimir Kara-Mourza, imprisoned for nearly a year for criticizing the offensive in Ukraine .
"
#Russia: UN Human Rights Chief @volker_turk is concerned about the prolonged detention of opponent and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza since April 2022
," the High Commissioner's office tweeted.
Volker Türk calls for the establishment of "
a fair procedure
" and respect for
the opponent's "
right to defence ".
Rare opposition figure
Winner of the 2022 Vaclav-Havel Human Rights Prize, Vladimir Kara-Mourza, 41, is one of the last Russian opposition figures still in the country.
He has been charged in Russia with “
high treason
”, his lawyer announced last October, a crime punishable by very heavy prison sentences while he is already imprisoned for having criticized the offensive in Ukraine.
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The crime of "
high treason
" is punishable by twenty years in prison, but the sentence can be increased if the suspect is the subject of several charges.
In this case, Vladimir Kara-Mourza was already targeted by two other criminal cases.
In April 2022, he was arrested in Moscow after criticizing the offensive in Ukraine, particularly on social networks, and charged with "
spreading false information
" about the Russian army, a crime punishable by ten years in prison.
Subsequently, in August, during his imprisonment, he was accused of having worked for an organization designated as “
undesirable
” in Russia, by organizing in 2021 in Moscow a conference on political prisoners.
Poisonings
A former journalist, he was close to the opponent Boris Nemtsov, assassinated not far from the Kremlin in 2015, and also worked with the organization of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-oligarch who became a detractor in exile of Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Kara-Mourza claims to have been poisoned twice by Russian agents, in 2015 and 2017, as a result of his political activities.
The opponent has held Russian citizenship since birth and obtained British citizenship after moving to the UK with his mother when he was 15.