A message from Yulia Navalnaya

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Alexei Navalny, YouTube

Write me a letter, a letter about anything.

Remember how in 2017, Alexei traveled all over Russia during his presidential campaign? More than 50 cities in less than a year. He was very tired. But he came back from each trip with absolutely sparkling eyes.

Communication with people was important to him. He wanted to be the kind of politician that understands the real Russia, with all its complexities and peculiarities. This helped him come up with ideas that would benefit everyone…That’s why he was so good at being their representative, at being our representative…

And then what happened, happened. The arrests, the war, Alexei’s murder. Life changed completely. We found ourselves scattered all over the world…

Maybe you remember in Alice in Wonderland the White Rabbit says to Alice, darling, this is the kind of place where you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place, and to get somewhere else you have to run twice as fast…I’m ready to run as fast as I can.

Write to me about anything, about what seems important to you right now, about what helps you hold on. Write to me at letter@yulianavalnaya.com

Dear Yulia,

I meant to write to you back in February 2024, the morning your husband was killed in a frozen Arctic gulag that failed to swallow his light. The news I dreaded seemed to crackle from the phone to my heart, suffocating me at the bottom of the Polar sea, like a brinicle, a finger of death paralyzing everything in its reach. 

I’m deeply saddened and sorry that Alexei was taken from you and your family, and also from all of us around the world who remain awed and inspired by his courage to champion democracy and truth against oppression and persecution, always unafraid. During his campaign, you and he must have been on fire with hope and conviction, determined to deliver democracy to the people of Russia.

Recently, you invited people to write to you about what seems important, or anything at all, though I think you were asking Russians at home and in diaspora. I wish I could write to you as a Russian and reminisce with you about daily life in your homeland, the wonderful and not so wonderful, the flavors and sights, the casual conversations with friends and neighbors, even the fears and frustrations, and what is yet to come in society, economics, and politics. I don’t know what it is to be Russian, but I understand the cost to humanity when corrupt and barbaric people accrete power and otherwise decent human beings stay quiet. As tyranny spreads, we fearfully, incrementally yield our rights and the rights of others, gradually becoming less human until we somehow tolerate poisonings, disappearances, torture, and murder. In contrast, Alexei refused this moral descent. During his funeral and in the following days, we saw how many thousands of people also rejected intimidation and fear to pay their respects to the man who inspired them.

Please know that I wrote to President Putin three times asking for Alexei’s release. In one letter, I quoted Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem, “Dwarf birches” and one night, when I worried that Alexei’s condition was critical, I sent an email to the Kremlin. It seems feeble, I know, but such is our world that this was all I knew to do. I wish Alexei could be with you.

What seems important to me lately is your voice, the voice of Alexei Navalny and Catherine Connolly and likeminded leaders defending a rights-driven politics that serves the people, defends our rights, and protects us from the brutality of dictatorship. What’s important to me is speaking up and speaking the truth. Truth is the most important thing.

I’m so pleased to write to you and share how much your video messages inspire me, and I look forward to reading Patriot with Alexei’s voice alive again in his written words.

Take good care and please stay safe,

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

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Sign the petition to release Dr. Safiya at Amnesty.org

Dear Brigadier General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi,

I hope you and your family, friends, and staff are very well.

I’m writing to you again to urge the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.

He was taken by Israeli forces on 27 December 2024, along with other hospital staff and patients, during a deadly raid on the hospital, now reduced to rubble. 

Despite his son’s death a year ago this month, Dr. Safiya, 51, shared regular, reliable updates about the deteriorating healthcare and hospital conditions in North Gaza and continued to treat the endless stream of incoming patients. Many of these children died from catastrophic injuries because the heavily bombed hospital no longer had medicine, sterile instruments, bandages, or any of the life-saving equipment it once had.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have collected testimonies from those who survived imprisonment. The consistent testimonies reveal systematic torture and other abuses, denial of the right to a fair trial, due process, adequate food, clean water, and medical care. I’m deeply concerned about Dr. Safiya’s health and reason for being in prison as he hasn’t been charged with a crime, and independent monitors haven’t been allowed to meet with him.

I’ve never met Dr. Safiya in person, but I know there aren’t enough hours in a day for any man to do more than manage a hospital under constant attack, treat an endless influx of injured and dying children, and try to see his own grieving family. Dr. Safiya is a hospital director, a doctor, and a family man, nothing more.

Without a criminal charge, Dr. Safiya’s detention and ill-treatment are serious violations of international law. Therefore, I once again urge you to secure the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and the other health workers detained in Israel. Until they’re released, please provide adequate medical care, clean food and water, and protection from torture and other ill-treatment, including coercion.

Since the ceasefire, our world is hopeful again. I trust you also feel this welcome change as we bravely dare to live long and happy lives in peace, together.

With respect and gratitude,

Your Excellency, President Gustavo Petro

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I send best wishes to you and your family, friends, staff, and citizens. 

At the 80th United Nations General Assembly, Dialogue of Civilizations, you proposed an army (larger than that of the United States) comprised of soldiers from all willing nations to enforce the orders of international justice starting with the liberation of Palestine. You said, “Here humanity has been challenged and humanity must respond.”

Because the gears of change grind slowly, would you help mobilize willing nations to send their naval ships to the Global Sumud Flotilla now? I understand Italy has sent two naval ships and Spain has sent one, equipped with a helicopter. 

I want to do something, anything, but I don’t know what. I know only that you’re right, that humanity must respond. 

Mr. President, I respectfully urge you to use your powers to mobilize nations for Palestine, including you own, to send naval vessels to ensure safe passage for the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying only survival aid and innocent civilians desperately trying to open a humanitarian gateway to Gaza. 

Respectfully, 

Mo Chara is free

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Mo Chara of Kneecap was cleared of terror charges today as naval ships from Italy and Spain join the humanitarian Global Sumud Flotilla (recovering from more chemical and explosive drone strikes) now off the coast of Koufonisi, south of Crete.

Also on this day, most of the 150 delegates at the 80th United Nations General Assembly walked out on Prime Minister Netanyahu, who then spoke to a nearly empty assembly hall. Colombian President Gustavo Petro stood on a street in New York City (with Roger Waters of the former Pink Floyd) and called for an army larger than that of the United States to be comprised of soldiers from all willing nations to enforce the orders of international justice starting with the liberation of Palestine. He said, “Here humanity has been challenged and humanity must respond.”

On Thursday, United States President Donald Trump said he “will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.”

Of the 193 United Nations member states, 157 recognize an independent state of Palestine. People around the world continue to protest crimes against Palestinians while the estimated number of deaths in Gaza exceeds 160,000 people of which more than 20,000 were children.

Guarding or owning animals, parenting children, teaching students, treating patients, employing workers, these all involve some autonomy and independence, but within the law and protections of human rights. A nation’s self defense must be proportional and no state has any right to target and starve, torture, psychologically harm or kill innocent people.

Humanity must respond, but how does the average person intervene in genocide? I don’t know. I emailed the Turkish Embassy and urged President Recep Tayip Erdoğan to mobilize partnerships in the region and call on National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler to assist in safe passage for the Global Sumud Flotilla. I emailed President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, President Donald Trump, and President Gustavo Petro to respectfully request the same, assistance for the safe passage of the flotilla crew and survival aid to Gaza.

On board the humanitarian flotilla, Tadgh Hickey titled one of his videos, “Do something before we’re murdered.” I read that to mean all of us.

Mo chara is “my friend” in Irish, and I think it would be a beautiful thing to live in a world where we could say about all innocent people everywhere, mo chara is free, my friend is free.

Your Excellency, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

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Thank you for your powerful speech at the United Nations General Assembly that you delivered on behalf of everyone in Gaza. You shared photos of the daily desperation in Gaza and asked us to feel our own conscience to answer what reasonable reason could there be to explain this brutality in 2025?

We repeat the horrors of history without understanding why, but we also act, disrupt, intervene, rescue, and in the end prove we are human after all. 

Mr. President, would you call on National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler to designate a vessel from the Turkish Naval Forces to join the Italian Navy ship now assisting in safe passage for the Global Sumud flotilla? The flotilla claims to carry only humanitarian volunteers and survival aid for Gazans.

I respectfully urge you to mobilize your partnerships in the region to secure and galvanize a gateway to Gaza so the remaining people there may survive another day.

With respect, gratitude, and much hope,

Nancy Kivette 

Your Excellency, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi

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I hope you, your family, friends, staff and fellow citizens are very well.

I wish to respectfully share an urgent consideration for you and His Excellency, Mr. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly as he represents Egypt at the United Nations General Assembly convening now in New York.

As you know, the Prime Minister reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to a safe and stable Middle East, and underscored the significance of the New York declaration to renew the international community’s commitment to the right of the Palestinian people to an independent state. Prime Minister Madbouly also stated that what is required of the UN delegates today is to take practical steps toward a lasting peace process.

As one of the many steps toward peace, will you and your key delegates find a way to join Turkey and other nations in securing safe passage of food, water, and medicine onboard the Global Sumud flotilla to Gaza? Their boats are approaching Egypt and Turkey today.

Of course meaningful protections against terrorism and ensuring national security in all countries must follow, but as mounting international evidence reveals, time has run out for civilians in Gaza as they struggle to escape death. Can we, as fellow human beings, narrow our focus and momentarily mute the politics to ensure the Sumud flotilla reaches shore without harm?

We’re no longer talking about humanitarian aid, if we were, we wouldn’t be mourning the tens of thousands of people, including 20,000 children, who have died for nothing. All we can claim to deliver now is survival aid, the bare minimum of water, food, and medicine, and a path forward for desperately needed emergency medical equipment and supplies, safe shelter, and reliable transport. For too many innocent people this is far too late, but for those who remain, with nothing left but dust, maybe this is enough for one more day. 

Without delay, please call on your partnerships in the region to ensure that the Sumud flotilla safely reaches Gaza.

With hope and gratitude,

Nancy Kivette

P.S. I hope you can pardon the avenue of this message; I tried to email through Share an Idea on the presidential website, but didn’t find the option for United States, thank you.

Navalny is free, long live Navalny

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“My message for the situation when I am killed is very simple. Don’t give up.”

Photo published by Vatican News and other news sources

Shock

Had I not read the awful headline lying down, I might have fallen to the floor. Then again, why the surprise? Anyone who follows Navalny likely also hid a hazy nausea about this day, but I believed there was a chance, I don’t know why. Maybe it was his easy jokes, smiling reassurances even while Putin’s threatening chain of events hung ominously in view: the Novichok-laced tea, an unsurprising airport diversion to yet another unsurprising arrest, more fabricated crimes and demoralizing sentences, and finally Polar Wolf, penal colony IK6, the gulag.

Censorship, repression, unlawful detention, torture, murder. It’s easy to say Putin did all of this, not you or I, but in every country we willingly inhale smokescreens of patriotic rhetoric to ease that queasy cognitive dissonance rearing up whenever hard evidence reveals the grave errors of our judgment. It’s not easy to question misplaced trust and allegiance. If we can stomach the truth, we learn and grow, but for too many of us, there’s no admitting a mistake like this. In our desperation to believe that things can’t possibly be what they are, we created the Putin who poisons (poisoning of Navalny, poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko) hijacks (Ryanair flight FR4978, kidnapping of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega), corrupts laws, rights, and accountability (Putin’s palace), because it feels good to feel patriotic and it’s so easy to look away, not think about it, do nothing. True patriotism calls for the defense of a country and its peoples, including everyone’s rights, freedom, inherent dignity, and equality, and that responsibility is up to each of us.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Therefore, don’t do nothing.”

Heartbreak

The world is mourning the loss of fearless dissident leader Alexei Navalny because a head of state sanctioned his murder. The absolute zero of this crime is heartbreaking. Conscience can’t be killed. From poison and prison to death and now the arrest of grieving citizens laying flowers, when does it end? Perhaps the removal of Н as in Навальный (Navalny) from the Cyrillic alphabet.

The dream that Navalny would survive and become president is over, but one day soon someone inspired by Navalny and equipped with his legal education, principled anti-corruption experience, and tireless fight for justice will stand up.

“I’m not afraid. And you, don’t be afraid.”

Freedom

Navalny is free at last. No more persecution, starvation, solitary confinement, untreated medical and dental conditions. The countless daily cruelties designed to break the mind and spirit have stopped.

I think about his last years in prison and wonder when was the last time Navalny spent summertime with his family. Sunlight, laughter, his wife and children, picnics, a playful, easy rhythm throughout the day from waking up late to watching the sun set in a burst of brilliant colors, evenings together over a simple, savory meal, reflecting on the day’s highlights.

In these heartbreaking days, I think about Navalny in summer.

It makes sense, I suppose, that I write this in Lato, which means summer in Polish. Łukasz Dziedzic designed Lato, a Google font, and according to his bio: “During Poland’s first free elections in 1989, he joined Gazeta Wyborcza, the first independent daily newspaper.” The font styles are shown in excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I think Navalny would like Lato:

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Light 300

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity

Regular 400 at 48px

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is

Regular 400 at 36px

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Regular 400 at 32px

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Regular 400 at 21px

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Regular 400 at 16px

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

“Prison exists in your mind. If you think carefully, I’m not in prison, but on a space voyage to a wonderful new world.”

Navalny is free, long live Navalny

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny Алексей Анатольевич Навальный

4 June 1976–16 February 2024

“If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We don’t realize how strong we actually are.”

Don’t give up, do something

Amnesty International

Spring is coming

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Another letter to President Putin

The President of the Russian Federation

Presidential Administration Office

23 Ilyinka Street

Moscow, 103132

Russian Federation

April 4, 2022

Your Excellency, President Vladimir Putin!

I emailed you last year through the Kremlin website. It seemed risky for several reasons, but Alexei Navalny and many others have risked much more in these shadow years of winter.

In my email, I said only you can save Navalny’s life, that you can change the course of history. This is still true. Your position on Navalny and Ukraine may feel fixed in stone, immovable and permanent, like a monument in the making.

The Palace of the Soviets would have been the world’s tallest skyscraper, but unchecked ambition crushed progress and the installed steel was disassembled to support unrelated construction.

The Palace of the Soviets doesn’t exist and obedience forced from dissenting minds can’t last.

From “Dwarf Birches” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko,

Constraint bears the form of rebellion.

For Alexei Navalny and Roman Protasevich, for others like them in Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia, for all persons bent down,

eternal frost can’t last.

Its horror will yield.

Our right to stand upright will come.

Should the climate change, won’t

our branches at once grow

into shapes that are free?

President Putin, won’t you lead this welcome change of seasons?

Spring is coming. 

Free Roman Protasevich

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Amnesty International campaign for Roman Protasevich

Flag by Jasper Johns, 1954-55

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I hope this message finds you, your family, friends & staff in good health.

As our world emerges from the pandemic, people everywhere still face many challenges, but none so insidious as the state-sanctioned hijacking of Ryanair flight FR4978 and the kidnapping of Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega on Sunday, 23 May 2021.

Staggering in scope and brutality, this is state terrorism, a baseless military attack against a civilian aircraft, civilian passengers, international civil aviation, internationally recognized standards of democracy, and Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Roman and Sofia are in grave danger. Their safety and survival together with our collective humanity depend on the world’s right action right now.

An act of terrorism

14 May

  • Email address created for Ahmed Yurlanov, sender of the “Hamas bomb threat”

23 May

  • 09:30 GMT during the descent to Vilnius, the flight was forced to divert to farther-away Minsk due to a bomb threat from “Hamas”
  • 09:47 GMT emergency declared by the pilot
  • 09:54 GMT timestamp on bomb-threat email from Ahmed Yurlanov for “Hamas” 24 minutes after Belarusian authorities claimed they received the bomb threat
  • Protesevich was arrested and charged under Articles 293(1) (“Organization of mass disorders”), 342(1) (“Organization or active participation in group actions that severely violate public order”) and 130(3) (“Incitement of racial, ethnic, religious or other social hatred or enmity”). Amnesty International: Free Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega, Write a message

More

  • Belarusian authorities reported the “bomb threat” and diverted the plane 24 minutes before they received the “bomb threat”
  • A military MiG jet escorted the civilian Ryanair plane and passengers to Minsk airport
  • Belarus attributed the “bomb threat” to Hamas, but Hamas claims no responsibility
  • “President Alexander Lukashenko told Parliament the email originated in Switzerland, however Swiss authorities say they know nothing about it, and Swiss email provider Proton Technologies said it had not seen ‘credible evidence that the Belarusian claims are true.'” – Belarus plane: What we know and what we don’t, BBC News
  • Arrests, torture, and imprisonment of journalists and activists has increased recently
  • Belarus carries out the death penalty and executed two journalists in 2019
  • “In August 2020 during post-election protests over 30,000 people were arbitrarily detained and there were hundreds of complaints of torture and ill treatment” – Amnesty International: Free Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega

Mr. President, I urge you to swiftly galvanize all powers by any means necessary to ensure the release of Roman and Sofia before they’re killed and before our right to life, liberty, and security of person in this fragile world are further endangered.

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Update: Nassima al-Sada Released from Prison on June 27, 2021

About Nassima al-Sada’s release

Free Nassima al-Sada

Amnesty International campaign for Nassima al-Sada

H. R. H. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
Deputy Prime Minister
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Your Excellency:

Progressive reforms for women that you’ve introduced include ending the ban on female driving and diminishing male guardianship requirements. Nassima al-Sada is among the millions of people around the world who welcome these changes. In fact, Nassima campaigned for these same human rights that you defended into law, yet years later she is still in Dhahban Central Prison. 

In 2018, Saudi authorities arrested Nassima for championing the same equal rights for the people of Saudi Arabia that you have now established. She was held in solitary confinement for a year, and for months at a time was not allowed to see her lawyer or her own children.

I read that Nassima cares for a plant in her prison cell. Even without sunshine, fresh air, and butterflies, she cultivates life, hope, and freedom. I think I understand this. After losing nearly everything in my life, I started over in a cold, grey city thousands of miles from everything I’ve ever known. Though it rains and snows here and the sun doesn’t shine often, I work hard and against all odds to grow the tropical plants and flowers of my previous life because some dreams will never die. Life, hope, and freedom belong to everyone. Nassima and you are not so far apart; you both want the people of Saudi Arabia to flourish.

I respectfully urge you to release Nassima al-Sada and all detained human rights defenders and activists. They are among your country’s greatest strengths and together you have an unprecedented opportunity to establish equality for everyone. When everyone in your kingdom is empowered and free, imagine what more Saudi Arabia will accomplish!