James D. Long, University of WashingtonThe death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, announced on Feb. 16, 2024, lays bare to the world the costs of political persecution. Although his cause of death remains unknown, the 47-year-old died while serving a 19-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony.“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in a Feb. 19 video.As an anti-corruption activist turned opposition leader, Navalny shone a light on the brutal excesses of President Putin’s regime. Like Navalny, Putin’s political opponents are routinely subjected to sham investigations, detained without due process and often die under suspicious circumstances. Navalny survived poisoning in 2020.Not a week since the death and former President Donald Trump already compared himself favourably to Navalny. “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country,” Trump wrote on social media.Prosecutors, the courts and his political opponents, including President Joe Biden, were “leading us down a path to destruction” in “slow, steady progression.”Facing four criminal indictments encompassing 91 felony counts, Trump has often declared that he is the victim of political persecution. His Republican allies in media and government parrot this refrain.Is there merit to Trump’s claim that the U.S. legal system is little more than the puppet of Putin-like machinations, in which courts are hijacked to knock out political rivals?I am a scholar who studies the prosecutions of political leaders globally. It is true that such prosecutions have become increasingly common in the past two decades. Often, distinguishing good faith proceedings from bad faith “witch hunts” is not a fact-based exercise, especially for the targets of investigations and among their supporters.But the law and evidence help to elucidate some themes that lead any reasonable observer to categorically differentiate Navalny—and other victims of bona fide maltreatment—from Trump.
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