Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, lost another lawsuit on Wednesday in his bid to resist the Kremlin’s growing crackdown on himself and other dissidents.
Russian news agencies reported that a court dismissed the latest in a series of lawsuits Navalny filed against prison authorities over his incarceration situation.
The 46-year-old politician and activist is serving a nine-year sentence in the IK-6 maximum security prison, located in the village of Melekhovo, in the Vladimir region, about 250 kilometers east of Moscow.
Video of a hearing showed Navalny speaking remotely in court from a small prison room.
The opposition politician of the Putin regime stood, gesturing with his hands and vehemently protesting the authorities’ decision to put him in solitary confinement.
“I am considered the worst offender and I am in solitary confinement for systematically creating ridiculous violations,” Navalny told the judge in the regional city of Kovrov in Vladimir.
Earlier this year, Russian prison authorities arrested Navalny and put him in a cell for five days for calling a police officer by name and another seven days for walking in that cell for three seconds without putting his hands behind his back, leaving the prison behind. rules were violated.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Navalny complained about the unfair treatment he is receiving.
“There are people in cell-like rooms, but there is no one but me in a cell. Actually, every convict should be put in a cell, because there are no more minor offenses imaginable than ‘two seconds [sem] hands behind your back'””said Navalny.
On August 21, 2020, Navalny was admitted to a hospital in serious condition, believed to be poisoned, after feeling unwell during a flight to Moscow that made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk.
Days later, Russian authorities authorized his transfer to Germany, where he was treated for 32 days at the Charité University Clinic in Berlin for nerve agent poisoning.
After spending some time in Germany, he returned to Russia in January 2021, but was arrested upon landing in Moscow.
Source: DN
