Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, currently serving his sentence in the Melekhovo penitentiary in the Vladimir region, said on Twitter that his lawyer had been prohibited from bringing documents to meetings with Navalny, while the politician himself — from “even listening to what is written in any documents”.
“And now they have taken away all the papers from my lawyer at the entrance to the colony, saying that from now on the administration of the colony will decide what is relevant to the criminal case and what is not, and therefore, what can be read out to me and what can't. So now my lawyer sits at our meeting with just a blank sheet of paper and a pen. And I, separated by the opaque glass in front of me, also only a blank piece of paper and a pen. What a great defence I've got. I guess we could discuss the weather, for example,” Navalny stated.
The politician added that the next time he might get escorted to a meeting with his lawyer with his “mouth taped shut”.
On 15 September, Navalny reported that his lawyers had been banned from showing him documents. On 8 September, he said that the administration of the Vladimir penitentiary had refused to let his lawyers use the attorney-client privilege any longer.
Previously, relatives of convicts of the Vladimir penitentiary told YouTube channel Popular Politics that they had been banned from looking at Navalny. According to the relatives, when Navalny is being brought somewhere, three alarms start sounding — a signal for the convicts, according to which they are supposed to turn away [from Navalny] or step away from the windows if Navalny is outside.
On 7 September, Navalny was put in solitary confinement for the fourth time — for 15 days. According to him, that was the Kremlin’s reaction to his “not ‘settling down’, continuing to call for sanctions against Putin's elite (the 6000 list), and announcing once again the 'Smart Voting' so hated by them”.
