Relatives of the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Kara-Mursa were very worried: contact with the 42-year-old activist had been broken off. Now it is clear: he was transferred to another prison camp – again in solitary confinement.
Contact with his relatives was briefly lost, but now, according to a media report, imprisoned Kremlin opponent Vladimir Kara-Mursa has reappeared in another Russian prison camp. His lawyer Maria Eismont reported that he was taken to Penal Colony No. 7 in the city of Omsk. He told her this in a letter, she told the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Kara-Mursa will be in solitary confinement for at least four months.
Accusation: disobeying orders
Another lawyer for Kara-Mursa, Vadim Prokhorov, posted a copy of the letter on Facebook. Kara-Mursa reported that prison representatives had accused him on Friday of disobeying an order. However, this was not given to him at all. It is a special penal colony in which there is a facility for “repeat offenders” like him, wrote Kara-Mursa. “I’m in isolation, of course,” but he’s doing well. He has enough food and the facility is warm.
The journalist and activist was sentenced to 25 years in a camp last April on charges of treason. Behind closed doors, he was found guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian army and having ties to an “undesirable organization.” The Cambridge graduate had campaigned for Western sanctions against the Kremlin for years.
Survived two poison attacks
Kara-Mursa described the allegations against him as punishment for rebelling against Russian President Vladimir Putin. He survived two poisonings, for which he blamed the Kremlin. The 42-year-old is in poor health after the attacks.
It happens again and again that opponents of the regime who have been imprisoned in the Russian prison system literally disappear for a certain period of time and contact with families, friends and even lawyers is lost. Human rights activists criticize this practice as harassment.