Karacsony: Expressing support for Navalny ‘moral obligation’
Expressing support for Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is a "moral obligation, just like it is an obligation to protect Russian democracy and the freedom of publicity, based on our common European values", the mayor of Budapest said on Facebook on Wednesday.
Gergely Karacsony said it demonstrated “the roaring of dictatorship” that Navalny, “the most popular opposition politician in Russia is punished by the Russian state with a prison sentence after surviving a state-backed attempt to assassinate him and having the courage to return to his home country”.
“We are witnessing a cowardly attempt to intimidate the critics of the regime and silence the Russian people’s desire for freedom,” he added.
Karacsony criticised the Hungarian government, arguing that while “the democratic world” expressed support for Navalny and crowds of peaceful demonstrators in Russia , the government joined such declarations “only half-heartedly or not at all” and instead “increases Hungary’s dependence on Russia”.
