Name: Vladimir Kara-Murza
Position: Russian opposition activist, vice president of Open Russia
Deprived of liberty from: the 11th of April 2022
Judgment: Awaiting trial, facing up to 16 years of imprisonment
Country: Russia
Place of confinement: Pretrial Detention Center 5
Health condition: Normal
Torture complaint: None
Kara Murza had been vice-president of the Free Russia Foundation and coordinator of the Open Russia civic movement, both designated as “undesirable” by the Russian authorities.
Kara Murza has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin for years and was a close friend of assassinated Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. He survived two near-fatal poisonings, in 2015 and 2017, which Bellingcat investigative journalists reported were likely orchestrated by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Sponsors
Irwin Cotler
Position: Former Minister of Justice and former Parliamentarian of Canada
Obsevations
Irwin Cotler is the International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and longtime Member of Parliament, and an international human rights lawyer. A leading Parliamentarian on the global stage, he has been Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran; Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky; Chair of the All-Party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition; Chair, Canadian section, of the Parliamentarians for Global Action and Member of its international council.
