Free Aleksei Navalny

Amnesty International campaign for Aleksei Navalny

The President of the Russian Federation
Presidential Administration Office
23 Ilyinka Street
Moscow, 103132
Russian Federation

Your Excellency, President Vladimir Putin!

In the matter of Aleksei Navalny, only you can save his life, which is to say only you can change the course of history.  

To free Navalny is to lead humanity as we’ve never seen before. You have the power to change the world.

In the words of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, excerpted from “Dwarf Birches” translated by

Vera Dunham:

"Of course, you command more freedom.
But, for all that, our roots are more strong.
Of course, we don’t dwell in Paris,
but we are valued more in the tundra.

"We are dwarf birches.
We have cleverly made up our poses.
But all this is largely pretense.
Constraint bears the form of rebellion.

"We believe, bent down forever,
eternal frost can’t last.
Its horror will yield.
Our right to stand upright will come.

"Should the climate change, won’t
our branches at once grow
into shapes that are free?
Yet we’re now used to being maimed.

"And this worries and worries us,
and the frost twists and twists us,
but we dig in, like splinters,
we-dwarf birches!"

Spring is coming.