Navalny: The head of the Russian opposition has been placed in solitary prison.

 

 

Alexei Navalny, the leader of the jailed Russian opposition, claims that he has been permanently moved to solitary prison.

The action, according to Mr. Navalny, was taken just days before a scheduled family visit and was intended to silence him.

He already had to serve 11 and a half years in prison for a variety of offences, including one for fraud that he said was false.

The most well-known opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin for a long time has been the 46-year-old.

According to a post on his Instagram account, Mr. Navalny was already being detained in solitary confinement, sometimes known as a “punishment cell,” but he could only be kept there for 15 days.

But in a series of tweets on Thursday, the high-profile Kremlin critic said he had been accused by prison officials of being an “egregious offender” and moved to a “cell-type room”. His visitation rights have also been curtailed.

 

He said his new confinement is “a regular cramped cell, like the punishment cell, except that you can have not one but two books and use the prison kiosk, albeit on a very limited budget.”

 

Family members, – including his mother, father and wife Yulia – were due to visit him four days after he was moved, Mr Navalny said. He accused the Kremlin of “bestiality” and manually controlling his “entire incarceration”.

“They’re doing it to shut me up. So what’s my first duty? That’s right, to not be afraid and not shut up,” he wrote.

 

Mr Navalny is being held in a penal colony more than 250km (150 miles) east of Moscow. He was arrested on his return to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated after being poisoning with a nerve agent.

 

He was initially jailed for two and a half years for breaking bail conditions while being treated in hospital, but was then given an extra nine years for fraud and contempt of court.

In May he lost an appeal against a nine-year prison term on fraud charges, during which he launched a blistering attack on Russia’s war in Ukraine. He said the rulings against him were no different from the lies used by “madman” President Vladimir Putin and state TV to justify the war.

 

“You will suffer a historic defeat in this stupid war that you started. It has no purpose or meaning. Why are we fighting a war?” he said.