On October 10, Evgenia Kara-Murza was in Strasbourg. From there, she went to Geneva. But she wasn’t on holiday. Mrs. Kara-Murza was collecting human rights awards from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and UN Watch on behalf of her husband, imprisoned journalist and activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Kara-Murza has been an outspoken opponent of Vladimir Putin, and a defender of truth in Russia. His criticism of Putin’s government has resulted in his being poisoned on two occasions, in 2015 and 2017. In April 2022, Kara-Murza was imprisoned for his reporting on and vocal opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has been charged with treason and deliberately spreading false information. If convicted he could face a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
His arrest immediately followed his return to Russia after a speech Kara-Murza gave before the Arizona House of Representatives on March 15, 2022. In his address, Kara-Murza spoke dispassionately, recounting the simple historical facts of Putin’s actions in Russia since 1999, including the 2015 murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, and the behaviour of Western countries in response to Putin and the Russian Oligarchs. He recounted plainly the history of Soviet repression of dissidents and called out the repression of opposing voices and war crimes being committed today in Ukraine. But he also spoke hopefully of the thousands who took to the streets in Russia to protest the war resulting in over 15,000 arrests by the time of his address.
Watching the recording of Kara-Murza’s speech, it is difficult not to be struck by the awareness that politicians in Canada and the United States regularly make far more aggressive statements, certainly, journalists and writers do. There are hours of footage online of the speaker of the house in the United Kingdom calling for order and literal fist fights during parliamentary sessions in Taiwan. But for merely standing before the Arizona House of Representatives and recounting the facts of the past, and present, and hoping for a brighter future, Kara-Murza is now facing upwards of two decades behind bars.
For the sake of clarity, none of what Kara-Murza shared in Arizona was “false information”. It is all easily verifiable as part of the global historical memory (and a simple Google search). But for the sake of analysis, we can explore what treason is, and why individuals like Kara-Murza who speak out against oppressive regimes in their country must be defended in the face of such allegations. For simplicity’s sake, and acknowledging that criminal legislation in different countries will have some variations in how they define terms, we will work with the dictionary definition of “treason”.
Treason is “the offence of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign’s family”.
Kara-Murza has consistently spoken out against Putin’s oppressive regime. In his address to the Arizona House of Representatives, on the topic of Putin’s governance and the war of aggression in Ukraine, he said: “the night is darkest before the dawn, but we know that dawn will come”. That is not a statement of one planning to overthrow the government or kill Putin but of someone with a deep love of their country and a desire to see it become a force for good in the world. Hope for a better future in a country with high rates of violent crime can hardly be regarded as meeting the threshold for treason, however one is defining it.
In her acceptance speech on Kara-Murza’s behalf in Geneva, Evgenia quoted Mark Twain, who said “patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when it deserves it.” There is little debate on the world stage that Putin’s government is not one currently deserving of support, and Kara-Murza has consistently demonstrated the courage not only to oppose the regime but to call attention to the lack of popular support for Putin in Russia and the need for the world to stand with the people rather than their feared leader. And yet, it is abundantly clear from everything Kara-Murza says that he is deeply patriotic. His actions are not treasonous but arise from a deep love for Russia and a vision of the role it can and should hold on the world stage.
“One thing we definitely know from history is how appeasement of dictators ends,” Kara-Murza said, “it always ends the same way”. For far too long, as Kara-Murza correctly points out, the world has appeased the dictatorial system of governance that Russia has attempted to claim is a democracy. Not only do we know from the pages of history how appeasing dictators ends, but we also know, as further evidenced by Kara-Murza’s arrest, the ways that dictatorial regimes can put a chokehold on the truth.
From the podium, in Geneva, Evgenia talked about how the father of her children is leading by example. Every day that Kara-Murza has spoken out against oppression and violence at the hands of the Putin administration has been a day that he has put his own life and freedom in danger to fight for a better future for Russia.
As quoted in Evgenia’s speech, Theodore Roosevelt said: “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” I can only begin to imagine the fear that comes with speaking out against Putin’s government and the war in Ukraine from Moscow. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to do so knowing full well that it could lead to an arrest and over a decade behind bars. I want to say that I would be able to put an important cause before my fear, but I don’t know if that is true. But I can and must stand with those who demonstrate true courage.
It is easy for those of us who have the incredible privilege to live in countries where freedom of speech is protected, to speak out in support of those who are suffering. And yet, so often we don’t. Getting information about the true reaction to Putin and his decision to invade Ukraine within Russia has been a challenge, and it will only be more difficult now that Kara-Murza and so many journalists like him have been imprisoned for calling attention to the true state of things.
So now it’s our turn.
We can take advantage of the safety to speak out and call for our governments to push for the release of Kara-Murza and other political prisoners in Russia and we can continue to support journalists who are risking their safety to report accurately on Russia and the war in Ukraine.