Eric, in the case of Navalny the sphere of thoughts of brutal dictatorship and autocracy applies. After his death I came to know that he had developed an efficacious strategy to gather votes in favor of Putin's opponents. He himself was the main political opponent. Then, I understood why he consigned himself to the tyrant: simply because the tyrant, being attuned to this specific sphere of thoughts, would have never relented in his pursuit to eliminate his main and ingenious opponent. Never.
So, plausibly Navalny renounced his freedom to protect himself and his family from future, inevitable assassination attempts, well knowing that anyway he would have probably found death in the jails.
In the case of Assange, I don't know the events very well to judge. America is not a brutal dictatorship, so different spheres of thought apply. The spheres of thought of factions and agencies behind the scenes of democracy, maybe.
