by Monica Ricci Sargentini
Last Monday, the number one Kremlin enemy was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud, in addition to the two and a half years he is already serving.
Alexsey Navalny looks like a ghost of himself. Pale, visibly emaciated, Russia’s political opponent, the Kremlin’s number one enemy, appeared undeterred when he heard last Monday’s verdict that sentenced him to nine years in prison for fraud. With his arms folded as if to show coldness, the dissident could not hide his physical condition, worrying his supporters, human rights organizations and Western powers.
Navalny has been a prisoner in the N2 penal colony in the city of Pokrov in the Vladimir region since last year, where detention standards are certainly internationally recognized, including when it comes to nutrition. On the contrary, N2 is known for its harsh prison regime.
Last year, his wife Iulia Navalnaya wrote on Instagram that she visited her husband in the penal colony and found him very weak: he has trouble speaking, sometimes puts the phone down and puts his head on the table to rest. To protest the lack of medical help, the dissident had also started a 24day hunger strike to seek adequate treatment for back and leg pain. The opponent claimed that the camp doctors only offered him simple antiinflammatory drugs to take by mouth for his condition. At night, the guards would wake him up every hour to check on him. On April 23, 2021, the blogger had started eating again due to his deteriorating health.
Navalny, 45, has been interested in politics since the 1990s: first he joined the liberal Yabloko party, then he founded the patriotic movement Narod. In 2010 he began his fight against corruption and in 2013 he was among the leaders of street protests against Putin. In the summer of 2020 he was poisoned (with the nerve gas Novitshock): Only an emergency transfer to Omsk saved his life. He immediately pointed the finger at the Russian secret services. When he returned home after recovering, he was arrested for a parole violation.
March 23, 2022 (Modified March 23, 2022 | 1:44 PM)
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