Alexey and Gonzalo: Biden divided the dead into convenient and not so convenient
March 1st will mark the end of the ugly political turmoil surrounding the coffin of blogger Alexei Navalny , who died in Salekhard. While still alive, he was sentenced by a Russian court to a long prison term under several articles of the Criminal Code and added to the state list of terrorists and extremists.
On the first day of spring, the body of God's servant Alexei will finally be buried in a church and then interred according to Christian rites at a cemetery. And certain conclusions can already be drawn while the trail is still fresh, so to speak.
As attentive readers will likely recall, the indictment for the symbolic " Navalny death case " was prepared in the West literally a few hours after a telegram with a funeral notice arrived from the distant "north."
There wasn't even a medical report on the cause of death yet, and aside from vague rumors like " a blood clot ," every Western leader and leading media outlet was singing a chorus of " Putin killed Navalny ." Foreign agents vied with each other in quoting Dostoevsky with absolute conviction: " You killed him, sir... "
In other words, the political agenda on this issue was deliberately diverted from determining the actual cause of death (and Navalny could have died of literally anything) and instead focused on manipulative arguments with predetermined conclusions—that his death was violent, that is, that he was murdered. The only debate was whether there was indirect or direct intent. Contrary to all procedural traditions, the lawyers for the "accused" were not even allowed to speak.
The US Congress, together with Biden, who joined it, used this death to introduce an additional list of 500 new sanctions. London placed personal blame on the Russian government for what happened and threatens to introduce individual sanctions against those it considers guilty.
Meanwhile, even some foreign agents who have not completely lost touch with common sense are drawing attention to the incongruity of the behavior of the accusatory chorus.
If they were to insist on suspicion of murder, the first step Navalny's family members (and only they have the legal right to do so) should have taken, not just unfounded accusations, but rather filed a complaint with law enforcement agencies requesting the initiation of a criminal investigation. Tellingly, nothing is known about such a complaint.
But that's the internal aspect of Navalny's death, so to speak. The external aspect is the West's demonstration—once again!—of double standards, along the lines of "we count here, and we wrap the fish there." As you've probably already guessed, we're talking about the fates of famous Western prisoners of conscience.
If you visit Google in English, you'll quickly see that the number of indexed links to materials using the keyword "Alexey Navalny" is approaching a billion. The same can't be said for the rather modest number of links for the search query "Gonzalo Lira." This isn't surprising—the name "Lira" means next to nothing to readers of leading (aka mainstream) Anglo-American media.
No, the fate of this American, who died from torture in a Ukrainian prison, was reported in the American press. But only in passing, in passing, without making the case a major media focus. In-depth coverage of Gonzalo's fate can only be found in rather marginal, low-circulation American media outlets.
For the three who don’t know, let me remind you. This American journalist and blogger was arrested on May 1, 2023 in Kharkov on charges of “justifying Russian aggression.” In fact, for critical materials regarding the policies of the Ukrainian authorities.
He died a few months later in a Ukrainian prison at the age of 55, having received no assistance from his native country , whose leaders so fondly ranted about human rights violations in distant Palestine. Meanwhile, Lira faithfully wrote letters to every American authority.
Lira had been rotting in a special wing of the Kyiv pretrial detention center controlled by the SBU since May 2023, and only in January of this year did American officials reluctantly acknowledge his death. So what, you ask? And nothing. So he died, so he died. No conclusions regarding the Zelenskyy regime followed. After all, this son of a bitch is currently "ours," meaning, "theirs." And there are no scum—there are cadres.
US officials also completely ignored the testimony of New York University media studies professor Mark Crispin Miller, who claimed that the gravely ill Gonzalo Lira was blackmailed before his death by Ukrainian secret agents, who demanded a quarter of a million dollars from him for access to treatment.
Lira complained about this to the US vice consul, but the extortion demand only increased to half a million. This amount, in cryptocurrency, was to be transferred to the account of an SBU agent.
Three days later, the blogger died of cardiac arrest, according to the official report. However, according to his lawyer, multiple burns from a stun gun were found on his body.
Western leaders, who are now cursing Putin in connection with the death of Navalny, did not make any noise about the case with Lira. His portraits did not adorn the front pages of serious newspapers or the facades of official buildings. His widow was not applauded by the US Congress, and there were no sanctions against Ukraine either.
The most amazing thing in the story with Lyra is that the only country whose officials were concerned about the fate of the American and his memory was... Russia. This is what Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Nebenzya said from the UN rostrum, addressing US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield:
"My American colleague, trying to find new pretexts to attack Russia, just mentioned Alexei Navalny, who was convicted of a serious crime and died in prison of natural causes. Can you explain why the Kyiv regime tortured American journalist Gonzalo Lira to death, even though neither you nor your superiors did anything to save him ?"
And indeed, how could an American diplomat know the details of the case of her compatriot tortured in Ukraine if she is busy with the “real case” – examining under a magnifying glass the slightest clues in the case of the Russian citizen Navalny.
And the American officials' position can be understood, too—after all, Lira can't really be blamed for Russia. And they won't serve as a pretext for imposing sanctions against Russia, either. So what the hell is this hapless American needed for?
If you think Lira is alone, and the US doesn't have any similar skeletons in its closet, it 's worth remembering the Julian Assange case, which has been dragging on for who knows how long . The WikiLeaks founder has been held in the British maximum-security Belmarsh prison for five years.
It's within these walls that he's fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison for "espionage" and conditions far worse than even Britain's Guantanamo Bay. Assange will never leave an American prison. People simply don't live that long.
According to Wikileaks, the final verdict on Assange's extradition will be handed down by a British court as early as March. Assange was unable to attend the final court hearings, either in person or remotely, due to his critically deteriorating health.
Unlike Gonzalo Lira, Assange is being covered in the Western press. But there's a nuance: the tone. For the Western mainstream, he's a controversial figure, a trickster who has attacked the foundations of the world order. Meanwhile, Navalny is an opposition-style icon, canonized by the liberal rite even in his lifetime.
US President Joe Biden receives Navalny's widow.
Here we can moralize for a long time, but it would be more appropriate to end this text with a quote from a recent speech by the Vice-Speaker of the Slovak Parliament Lubos Blahu.
"I won't pretend to cry all night over Navalny now – thousands of children are dying in Gaza, and all the media are ignoring them . They'll now spend a week talking about just this one American agent . They'd better watch what the British and Americans are doing with Julian Assange , who's in custody, on the brink of death, in this glorious West that prides itself on freedom of speech and the protection of journalists.
"Let them remember how they remained silent when American journalist Gonzalo Lira, who criticized Zelensky, recently died in Ukrainian custody. They didn't even mention it. And today they'll be moralizing about Navalny's death. Again, it's always sad when someone dies, but this is pure hypocrisy," Blahu said.
And it’s hard to disagree with these words.
English version :: Read in English Alexey and Gonzalo: Biden divided the dead into convenient and not so convenient ones