Opponent and anti-corruption activist Alexeï Navalny, who has been jailed in Russia for a year and a half, said Monday he was put in a disciplinary cell after pledged to create a union of prisoners.
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“Hello everyone from the Mitard. Union struggle is never easy but what about unions in prison,” he wrote in a message posted to social media.
He says he was put in solitary confinement for three days for breaking the rules by unbuttoning the top of his convict outfit. According to him, management threatened to make this prison “his permanent residence” if he didn’t change his stance.
He describes his cell as a “concrete kennel” with a chair, pull-out bed, sink and “a hole in the floor.” It’s “very hot” at the moment. “At night you feel like a fish lying on the shore,” writes Navalny.
“I am a role model for responsible consumption. In my cell there is only a cup and a book. They only give you a spoon and a plate at mealtimes,” he says with his usual irony.
Two cameras are watching him. Visits and mail are prohibited. An hour’s walk a day “in a similar cell but with some sky”. He says he is entitled to paper and a pen for one hour and fifteen minutes each day.
“I sit on my iron bench in front of my iron table. I am writing this message and I will write instructions for the Zeks (Russian prisoners, editor’s note) about their right to work as long as they don’t take the paper away from me.
Last week Alexei Navalny, 46, claimed to have formed a union in his prison near the town of Vladimir – 200 km east of Moscow – where he works in a sewing workshop.
He claims to have won “his first victory” by replacing the stools of the inmates working in the workshop with chairs.
In March, Alexei Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison under a “heavy” regime on charges of embezzlement, which he believes are fabricated.
He was arrested on his return to Russia in January 2021 after being treated in Germany for serious poisoning, which he blames on the Kremlin, which the Kremlin denies.