The jailing of Alexei Navalny may yet prove a turning point in Vladimir Putin’s presidency — not just because of the mere fact of his imprisonment, but because of the power of his words in the courtroom. In a scathingly dignified statement, the activist argued his court appearance had little to do with his alleged violations of parole linked to a 2014 fraud conviction (which the European Court of Human Rights called “arbitrary and unreasonable”). It was because he had survived a plot to poison him, investigated it, and tied it convincingly to Russia’s security services. “The explanation is one man’s hatred and fear — one man hiding in a bunker,” he said of Russia’s president.
阿列克謝•納瓦爾尼(Alexei Navalny)被判入獄最終可能被證明是弗拉迪米爾•普丁(Vladimir Putin)總統任期的一個轉折點——不僅是因爲他被監禁這個事實，還因爲他在法庭上雄辯的力量。這位社運人士在一份犀利而有尊嚴的法庭陳詞中主張，他出庭受審與他涉嫌違反2014年一宗欺詐定罪——歐洲人權法院(European Court of Human Rights)稱那宗定罪是「專斷和不合理的」——的假釋條件沒什麼關係，而是因爲他從一起毒殺陰謀中生存下來，然後對這件事進行調查，最後令人信服地將其與俄羅斯安全部門聯繫起來。「（這一切的）解釋就是某人的仇恨和恐懼——一個躲在地堡中的人，」他在提到俄羅斯總統時表示。