{"id":82766,"date":"2024-08-02T20:29:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T20:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/02\/freed-russian-dissidents-say-they-refused-to-sign-mercy-petition\/"},"modified":"2024-08-02T20:29:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T20:29:44","slug":"freed-russian-dissidents-say-they-refused-to-sign-mercy-petition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/02\/freed-russian-dissidents-say-they-refused-to-sign-mercy-petition\/","title":{"rendered":"Freed Russian dissidents say they refused to sign mercy petition"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Mr Kara-Murza said the prisoner swap had saved “16 human lives”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Two Russian dissidents released in a prisoner swap on Thursday said they refused to sign a petition for mercy to be sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin as requested by prison officials. <\/p>\n

During a news conference in Germany, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin said they did not admit guilt or give Russian officials their consent to be removed, and vowed to return home one day. <\/p>\n

Mr Kara-Murza said the deal had saved “16 human lives” and that he had been convinced he would die in prison.<\/p>\n

He added that many Russians were “opposed to Putin’s war in Ukraine”.<\/p>\n

The two men were released as part of the exchange, which saw 24 people jailed in seven different countries exchanged.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Those released by Russia included US journalist Evan Gerschkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan. <\/p>\n

The Russians released by Western nations included convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov, who had been serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a Georgian-born Chechen dissident in a Berlin park. <\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr Kara-Murza and Mr Yashin, along with another dissident Andrei Pivovarov, pledged to continue working towards a “free” Russia and advocating on behalf of political prisoners still being held there. <\/p>\n

Russian rights group Memorial says hundreds of political prisoners are currently held in prison. <\/p>\n

“I did not believe I would ever see my wife again. I did not believe I’d ever see my family again and this feels really surreal, this feels like a film,” said Mr Kara-Murza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ilya Yashin said he wanted to live in a “free” Russia<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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However the exchange was a “drop in the ocean because so many innocent people who’ve never committed a crime in their life are being held in torturous conditions” in Russia, he added.<\/p>\n

The freed dissidents also paid tribute to Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in prison on February.<\/p>\n

The White House said on Thursday that Mr Navalny had been due to be included in a deal.<\/p>\n

Mr Yashin said: “The fact that Alexei Navalny is not with us is a crime committed by Putin, who bears direct responsibility for his murder.”<\/p>\n

Mr Kara-Murza said he wanted “to remind people in democratic countries that Russia and Putin are not the same thing”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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EPA Mr Kara-Murza said the prisoner swap had saved “16 human lives” Two Russian dissidents released in a prisoner swap on Thursday said they refused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}