The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador in Sofia Eleonora Mitrofanova in connection with the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Ministry said in a press release on Friday.
Russian Charge d'Affaires Valentin Solodkin presented himself at the Ministry and was handed a demarche by which Bulgaria voiced its indignation at the February 16, 2024 death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a penal colony in Siberia, where he was unjustly confined.
Bulgaria called on the authorities in Moscow to conduct immediately a most transparent, in-depth and objective investigation, including by enlisting an independent international commission, and to clarify all circumstances surrounding Navalny's death. Bulgaria expects the culprits to be criminally prosecuted with the least possible delay. An appeal was made that Navalny's remains be immediately delivered to the family and that it be let unhindered to organize a funeral ceremony.
Bulgaria urged insistently for the immediate and unconditional release of all other political prisoners, including Yuri Dmitriev, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Alexei Gorinov, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Alexandra Skochilenko and Ivan Safronov, as well as human rights activists, journalists and anti-war activists, who have been arbitrarily for peacefully exercising their human rights and opposing Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Concern was voiced over the conditions of their detention, and the Russian authorities were reminded that torture is absolutely prohibited under international law.
Bulgaria voiced profound concern over the unrelenting persistent reprisals against Russian civil society, democratic forces, political opposition and the critical voices inside and outside the Russian Federation. Bulgaria expressed its unwavering empathy with them.
/KK/
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