The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have called on the international community to take action against the Russian government in response to detentions of protesters and journalists.
In the joint letter addressed to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe, the Baltic ministers "raised alarm at the growing repression of human rights defenders, civil society and the media in Russia, and call for an investigation into human rights violations".
According to them, these actions place Russia in violation of its international obligations, "including the principles for the protection and promotion of human rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights".
The foreign ministers also note that the European Court of Human Rights "has ruled that Russia's previous arrests of Navalny were arbitrary and politically motivated".
Reports by independent Russian media outlets show that over 5,000 people, including more than 90 journalists, were arrested in peaceful demonstrations across Russia on January 31 alone, according to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.
Read more: Baltics preparing for the day after in Minsk and Moscow – opinion
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