A United Nations human rights expert said on Monday that the "enforced disappearance" of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was alarming and demanded that Moscow release him immediately.
Lawyers for Kremlin critics have been prevented from meeting with him since December 6, and he failed to appear at a scheduled court hearing last Friday.
"I am very concerned that the Russian authorities will not disclose the whereabouts and well-being of Mr. Navalny for such a long period of time, which constitutes an enforced disappearance," said Marijana Kacarova, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Russia.
Navalny, 47 - who was a thorn in the side of Russian leader Vladimir Putin - was jailed in 2021 after he voluntarily returned from Germany where he was treated for what Western laboratory tests showed was an attempted nerve agent poisoning
Navalny said he was poisoned in Siberia in August 2020. The Kremlin has denied being behind the attempt to kill Navalny and says there is no evidence he was poisoned with a nerve agent.
His sentence was extended to 19 years this year due to charges of extremism.
Kacharova said she raised concerns with Russian authorities after Navalny's team was told on Friday, December 15, that he had been moved from the Vladimir region near Moscow four days earlier and taken to an undisclosed location.
Navalny's family and lawyers have sent letters to all prison colonies trying to identify his whereabouts, she said.
"They received initial information that he might be in a penal colony in Omsk, but that information was later dismissed," Kacarova said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the court ordered that Navalny be moved to a stricter prison.
Kacarova said the extremism charges he was convicted of were "baseless" and warned that detainees face high risks of serious rights violations during transport.
The independent expert, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who does not speak on behalf of the UN, insisted that "the term 'extremism' has no basis in international law."
In a statement, she criticized the "merciless criminal prosecution of Mr. Navalny" which was "widely condemned at the international level, which indicates an obvious misuse of the judicial system for political purposes."
Kacarova said that three of Navalny's lawyers were arrested in October, also on charges of extremism, and now risk being in prison for a long time.
"I call on the Russian authorities to comply with their international obligations regarding human rights," Kacarova said.
"Mr. Navalny and all those who have been arbitrarily detained should be immediately released and provided with legal measures and reparations for all the damage suffered," she added.
On December 12, the European Union repeated the call for Navalny's release, and the European head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that it is "very worrying" that it is not known where the Russian opposition leader is.
"The Russian political leadership is responsible for his safety and health in prison, for which they will be held accountable," Borrell said on the X Network.
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