1 _______________________________
2 Chairman Phil Mendelson
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6 A PROPOSED RESOLUTION
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8 _______
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10 IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
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12 ____________________
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15 To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to symbolically designate a
16 portion of the public alley system in Square 197 abutting Lots 841, 820, and 88, as Alexei
17 Navalny Way.
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19 RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this
20 resolution may be cited as the “Alexei Navalny Way Designation Emergency Declaration
21 Resolution of 2024”.
22 Sec. 2. (a) The administration of President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russian Federation
23 has engaged in transnational repression, assassinations of political opponents, poisoning and
24 other attempted murders of political opponents, journalists, and human rights defenders, systemic
25 human rights abuses, and unprovoked military attacks against and deployments to neighboring
26 countries.
27 (b) The administration of President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russian Federation has
28 carried out arrests and detentions of individuals who peacefully seek democratic freedoms or
29 oppose his repression, corruption, and invasion of Ukraine.
30 (c) Alexei Navalny was a Russian political dissident and activist dedicated to promoting
31 democratic freedoms and fighting corruption in Russia.
32 (d) On February 16, 2024, the Russian prison where Alexei Navalny was being held after
33 his conviction on fabricated charges in February 2021 announced that he had died a day after he
34 was seen in good health.
35 (e) Alexei Navalny had a history of exposing the widespread corruption that sustained the
36 Putin regime by enriching its enablers. He was recognized and awarded on numerous occasions
37 for his work fighting corruption and promoting democratic ideals. Those recognitions and
38 awards include the 2015 Prize of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, a
39 nomination for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, the 2021 Boris Nemtsov Prize for Courage, the 2021
40 Moral Courage Award by the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, the 2021
41 Knight of Freedom Award by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, and the 2021 Sakharov Prize by
42 the European Parliament.
43 (f) Alexei Navalny and fellow dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza endured several poisonings
44 and other attempts on their lives carried out by Putin’s government.
45 (g) In 1985, Congress directed the District to install signage on 16th Street between L and
46 M Streets, N.W. on which the now-former Soviet Embassy was situated naming the street for
47 Soviet academician Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Sakharov was a
48 dissident who vocally opposed the Soviet regime. That building became the Russian
49 Ambassador to the United States’ official residence after the new Russian Embassy was opened
50 on Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
51 (h) In 2018, the Council designated Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. in front of the current
52 Russian Embassy as Boris Nemstov Plaza. Boris Nemtsov was a critic of Russian President
53 Vladimir Putin who has been praised as an activist promoting democracy and human rights. In
54 February of 2015, Nemstov was shot from behind while walking across a bridge near the
55 Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, likely by Russian agents trying to silence his voice.
56 (i) Designating the alley surrounding the official residence of the Russian Ambassador to
57 the United States, and erecting signage in front of the residence and at the end of the alley on L
58 Street, would serve as a continuing expression of solidarity between the people of the United
59 States and the people of the Russian Federation, who are engaged in a sustained, peaceful, and
60 patriotic struggle for fundamental freedoms.
61 Sec. 3. The Council of the District of Columbia finds that the circumstances enumerated
62 in section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the “Alexei Navalny
63 Way Designation Emergency Act of 2024” be adopted after a single reading.
64 Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.