Εμείς οι Έλληνες έχουμε ισχυρούς και ιστορικούς δεσμούς με τον ρωσικό λαό. Ο πατέρας μου γεννήθηκε στη Ρωσία, στο Τουαψέ της Μαύρης Θάλασσας, το 1925. Ήταν μέλος της μεγάλης ελληνικής διασπορικής κοινότητας της Ρωσίας, πριν έρθει στη Δράμα μικρό παιδί. Ως φίλος του ρωσικού λαού, λοιπόν, μίλησα στην Ολομέλεια της Κοινοβουλευτικής Συνέλευσης του Συμβουλίου της Ευρώπης για ένα θέμα που έχει συγκλονίσει όλη την πολιτισμένη ανθρωπότητα: την απόπειρα δολοφονίας του ρώσου αντικαθεστωτικού Αλεξέι Ναβάλνυ και στη συνέχεια τη φυλάκισή του ως τρομοκράτη.
Ακολουθεί ολόκληρη η ομιλία μου:
Thank you, Madam President.
As you say, I come from Greece, a country with a very long, a very strong and a very deep relationship with Russia and the Russian people. My father was born in Russia back in 1925 in the Black Sea coastal town of Tuapse. He was part of the big Greek diaspora community of Russia. Therefore, I speak to you as a friend of the Russian people, and as such, I have a very simple message to deliver: free Alexei Navalny. Free him now without any further delay. Stop this mockery of justice that provokes the consciousness of every free citizen of Europe and the world. Russian authorities seem to have got it completely wrong and vice-versa. There is a victim and the victimiser. It is absolutely absurd to punish the victim, to put the victim – Alexei Navalny – into jail and to keep the victimisers, those who attempted this despicable act of assassination and the plotters behind the attempt free while you imprison the victim. It goes against, not only our morals, it goes against our logic and it runs against the very core mission of our venerable institution, the Council of Europe.
I do not know which is one to “admire” most: the audacity of the act, the stupidity of the plot, the mal-execution and what went on after that and the offending behaviour of Russian authorities, offending all of us ever since by imprisoning and keeping Navalny in detention.
It is high time to put an end to this charade of justice, to free Navalny now without any pre-condition or delay. The issue will not go away. Again, as I said it runs contrary to the very mission of the Council of Europe. there is a proliferation of such cases recently – Osman Kavala from Turkey is another one. They cannot be forgotten, they cannot be sidelined, they will be here as a stain for the countries that behave like that and for us all to stand up to this kind of behaviour
Thank you very much from Athens.