Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, currently serving his sentence in the Vladimir region penitentiary, shares on his social media that he has once again been made to share his punishment cell with the same man, who had not been provided with hygiene supplies for two months.
“You see, once again an amazing coincidence has happened. I’m put in a punishment cell and immediately [this man] commits a fortunate offence. For two months, he’s been smoking in the same spot, and no one cared. But the second they needed to make an impossibly stuffy room even more stuffy and unbearable, he was given 15 days [in the punishment cell] for smoking.
“The best part is that in the last two months he wasn’t even provided with basic hygiene items — neither toothpaste nor toilet paper. But as you must have guessed — he was placed [in the same cell as me] after he had [spent some time] in the medical unit. This man is being used as a [germ spreader],” the politician writes on his social media.
On 24 March, it was reported that Navalny had been placed in solitary confinement once again. This is his 12th stint in a punishment cell. According to Navalny, this time he was put there because “he introduced himself incorrectly”.
Navalny has been imprisoned for over two years. He has been made to share his cell with the same convict, who had been sent to a medical unit where flu and COVID-ridden inmates are located before being placed in Navalny’s cell, several times. Eventually, Navalny became ill in the punishment cell.
In February, the politician’s lawyer said that Navalny had been transferred to cell-type premises for the maximum possible term — half a year. Furthermore, Navalny’s lawyer added that he had been given “huge doses” of antibiotics, which had caused a complication in his stomach and made him lose 7 kg of weight.
