Shortly after the confirmation of a long prison sentence against the Russian opposition politician Navalny, his prison conditions were drastically tightened: he faces a year of solitary confinement. His supporters speak of torture.
Around two and a half years after his imprisonment, the prison conditions of Russia’s best-known opposition politician Alexei Navalny have been drastically tightened again. The prison camp management informed him that because of his “incorrigibility” he would be put in a so-called EPKT cell, an isolation cell, for a year, Navalny said via his team on social networks:
The 47-year-old was quoted as saying that this is “the highest possible punishment” in the Russian prison system. He himself feels “like a tired rock star on the verge of depression who has reached the top of the charts – and who has nothing left to achieve,” Navalny added.
Supporters speak of torture
Just on Tuesday, a Russian appeals court confirmed Navalny’s sentence to a total of 19 years in prison for alleged extremism. Internationally, Navalny is viewed as a political prisoner, and his punishment is criticized as the Kremlin’s directive to a compliant judiciary.
The prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin was imprisoned in 2021 and is now in a prison camp around 260 kilometers from Moscow. According to his own statements, he has been locked in a solitary cell for several days each time 20 times in the past few months. His supporters are convinced that the Russian state apparatus wants to torture Navalny in this way, break his resistance and use him as a deterrent example for other government critics.
Navalny is in poor health
Human rights activists also repeatedly point out Navalny’s poor health, who barely survived a nerve agent attack in the summer of 2020. Navalny accuses the Russian domestic secret service FSB and Putin of being behind the assassination attempt. The Kremlin denies this.