By RFE/RL January 26, 2021
International ministers from the Team of 7 (G7) key industrial nations have condemned Russia for the “politically motivated” detention of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny and the “violent suppression” of protesters demanding his launch about the weekend.
In a joint statement on January 26, the overseas ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States named Navalny’s detention “deplorable” and demanded his “fast and unconditional launch.”
“Russia is certain by its nationwide and global obligations to respect and ensure human legal rights,” they claimed.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, in which he had been recovering from a near-deadly poisoning by a armed service-grade nerve agent in August he accuses Putin of ordering.
Navalny faces up to a 3 1/2 calendar year sentence if convicted for violating a suspended sentence from a 2014 embezzlement case