3.02.2021 22:13
(Akt. 3.02.2021 22:20)
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Poland’s ex-president Wales calls Navalny “hero”
© APA / AFP
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Former union leader and former Polish President Lech Walesa has called for international cooperation to bring about a “system change” in Russia. In an interview with the AFP news agency on Wednesday, Walesa described the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny as a “hero”.
Navalny deserves the Nobel Peace Prize if he continues to take such a clear stand against the leadership in Moscow, said Walesa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his peaceful struggle against communism in Poland.
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“We need heroes like him,” said the 77-year-old ex-president about Navalny. “But we also need a different kind of international solidarity to enable system change in Russia.”
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Walesa spoke up the day after a Moscow court sentenced Navalny to two years and eight months in prison. The judges justified their decision with alleged violations of Nawalny’s probation requirements. The prison sentence caused outrage internationally; the EU criticized them as politically motivated.
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If he had the chance to meet the 44-year-old Kremlin critic, he would advise him to orientate his opposition behavior towards the anti-communist movement of the 1980s in Poland. “I felt that it was not the people who should be blamed, it was the system that allowed leaders to behave badly,” said Walesa. This can also be observed in Russia today.
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The aim should not be to fight against the Russian President Vladimir Putin, other individuals or the police. “Instead, we should fight for a new system that eliminates this type of behavior,” said Walesa.
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Walesa attracted worldwide attention in August 1980 when, as spokesman for the Polish union Solidarnosc, he led the shipyard workers’ strike in Gdansk. The strike led to the official recognition of the independent Solidarnosc union in Poland – and to Walesa going down in the country’s history as a freedom hero. In 1990 he became the first democratically elected President of Poland after World War II.
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In the AFP interview, Walesa also commented on the current political situation in Poland. He was critical of the almost complete ban on abortion that recently came into force. The women and men who took to the streets in their thousands were right, he said. “I support you wholeheartedly.”
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