Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has been sent to solitary confinement for the eleventh time, his team reports, citing Navalny’s own words during a court hearing on his lawsuit against the penal colony he is serving his sentence in.
Since the middle of August, Navalny has been made to spend 113 days in solitary confinement.
“This is full-scale pressure that is being put on me due to my political work: I have been censored, put in solitary confinement, a crazy man has been put [in my cell] who screams [all the time], my lawyers aren’t allowed to enter [the colony], bars have been set up [in the room where Navalny meets with his lawyers],” the politician states.
Yesterday, 24 January, an installation with a replica of the solitary confinement cell Navalny has spent more than 100 days in was put up in Berlin in front of the Russian Embassy. The installation was opened by Navalny’s brother Oleg and Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov. During his opening remarks, Volkov said that the replica would be installed in other European countries at different times.
Also yesterday, Nobel Peace Prize Laureates — Novaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Muratov and Filipino journalist, Rappler Editor-in-Chief Maria Ressa — urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to intervene and protect Navalny. In their letter, they noted that, starting from the moment of his detention in January 2021 and his stint in the pre-trial detention centre and the Vladimir region penitentiary, he has “changed beyond recognition”.
Navalny has been in solitary confinement almost constantly since mid-August.
The first time Navalny said he had been sent to solitary confinement was on 15 August. According to him, that was punishment for “regularly unbuttoning the top button of his prison robe” while in the industrial zone. The second time was on 24 August — for “3 seconds of hands not behind his back”.
The third time was on 30 August, the morning after he was released from his previous stint in solitary confinement. The fourth time was on 7 September, for 15 days.
The fifth time was on 23 September, for “speaking out against mobilisation” during a court session. The sixth time was on 11 October, for “refusing to wash a fence”.
The seventh time was on 1 November, for “sweeping the exercise yard poorly”. The eighth time was prompted by a “uniform violation”.
Navalny was punished with solitary confinement for the ninth time in mid-December for using the word “fuck” when speaking to his cellmate. He was placed in solitary confinement for the tenth time on New Year’s Eve, for washing his face “at 5:24 in the morning, while according to the schedule you wake up at 5:00 and wash at 6:00”.
