The League of Free Nations demands from Russia to release political prisoners

On Saturday, March 25, activists of the League of Free Nations held a series of actions in support of political prisoners from the national republics of the Russian Federation. Pickets were held in a number of cities in the USA, Germany, Lithuania and Turkey.

“Russia, literally and figuratively, is a prison of nations. Moscow rules national republics and regions as if they were conquered territories: predatory exploitation of resources, ineffective leadership, social and economic degradation, ban on political competition and lack of fair elections, destruction of sovereignty and total assimilation of non-Russian peoples. Our peoples are exterminated and at the same time they declare that we do not want freedom and independence because everyone is silent. Yes, people are really silent. But for now, Russia has the power to keep our people in fear of constant repressions,” says Vladimir Dovdanov, a member of the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people and a participant in the action in Vilnius.

Activists of the League came out with banners in support of:

• Airat Dylmukhametov is a Bashkir politician and journalist who was sentenced to 9 years in prison for calling for the creation of real federalism in the Russian Federation.
• Natalya Filonova is a journalist from Buryatia, known for covering protest actions in the republic. She has been held in a pretrial detention center for several months, and her adopted underage son with a disability was forcibly sent to a boarding school by the guardianship authorities.
• Altana Ochirova is an activist of the Oirat-Kalmyk national movement, sentenced to 5 years for managing an independent telegram channel about Kalmykia.
• Alexander Gabyshev is a Yakut shaman who survived numerous beatings by Russian security forces for publicly calling to “drive Putin out of the Kremlin.” Gabyshev became a victim of punitive psychiatry.

“Russia manipulates public opinion, intimidating the international community with the dire consequences of decolonization and the liberation of our peoples. They say that freedom and the realization of the right to self-determination of conquered peoples will inevitably turn into instability and war, which means that any repressions are justified. Meanwhile, Russia itself is waging the largest colonial war of the 21st century, using the non-Russian population as cannon fodder. With today’s action, we want to draw attention to the powerless situation of national republics and regions where political repression is especially terrible. After all, our freedom fighters scare not only the Kremlin, but also the so-called Russian opposition,” explains Maryna Khanhalaeva, the organizer of the action in Boston, representative of the Tusgaar Buryaad Mongolia movement for the independence of Buryatia.