The United States said this Monday that it was “deeply concerned” about the “detention conditions” of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, held in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic and after being held at an unknown destination for almost three weeks.
“We appreciate the information through which Navalny was located,” a State Department spokesperson said. “However, we remain deeply concerned about Navalny’s fate and the unjust conditions of his detention,” the statement said.
Last Saturday, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had already expressed his concern about the lack of knowledge of Alexei Navalny’s whereabouts. “We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Alexei Navalny, who has been missing in the Russian prison system for almost three weeks,” the head of US diplomacy said on social media.
In the same message, Blinken demanded “once again” the “immediate release” of the Russian opponent and that President Vladimir Putin’s government stop “suppressing independent voices in Russia.”
Followers of the Russian opposition leader reported this Monday on the social network
“We found Navalny. He is in penal colony number 3 in the city of Kharp,” said Kira Iarmych on X (formerly Twitter), indicating that Navalny “is fine” and that his lawyer visited him this Monday.
Kharp, a small town with a population of around 5,000, is located in Yamalo-Nenetsia, a remote region of northern Russia, north of the Arctic Circle, and is home to several penal colonies.
Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption activist, opponent and critic of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 and subsequently sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Accused of extremism, according to the court ruling, Navalny must serve his sentence in a “special regime” colony, a category of establishments where detention conditions are the harshest and which are normally reserved for prisoners serving life sentences already. the most dangerous detainees.
One of the “special regime” colonies is precisely in Kharp, colony number 18, or “Polar Owl”.
The Russian penitentiary services admitted, on December 15, that Navalny had been transferred from the Vladimir prison, where he had been serving his sentence since June 2022, but did not specify his new destination.
The opposition’s lawyers, sentenced to 30 years in prison, had no contact with their client since December 5 and their collaborators launched the global campaign “Where is Navalny?”
On December 7, Navalny appealed from prison to vote against Putin in the March 17 election.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern about the lack of information about Alexei Navalny’s whereabouts and demanded the Kremlin release him as soon as possible.
In the same message, Blinken demanded the “immediate release” of the Russian opponent and that President Vladimir Putin’s government stop “suppressing independent voices in Russia.”
Source: TSF
