MOSCOW (AP) — Associates of imprisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny stated Monday that he has been situated at a jail colony above the Arctic Circle practically three weeks after contact with him was misplaced.
Navalny, probably the most distinguished foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is serving a 19-year sentence on expenses of extremism. He had been imprisoned within the Vladimir area of central Russia, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of Moscow, however his legal professionals stated they’d not been capable of attain him since Dec. 6.
His spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, stated he was situated in a jail colony within the city of Kharp, within the Yamalo-Nenets area about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Navalny is “fine — at least as much as possible after such a long stage” and a lawyer visited him, Yarmysh advised The Associated Press.
The area is infamous for lengthy and extreme winters. The city is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines had been among the many harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system.
“It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world,” Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, stated on X.
Transfers inside Russia’s jail system are shrouded in secrecy and inmates can disappear from contact for a number of weeks. Navalny’s workforce was notably alarmed when he couldn’t be discovered as a result of he had been unwell and reportedly was being denied meals and saved in an unventilated cell.
Yarmysh stated the switch was linked with the marketing campaign for the Russian presidential election in March. While Putin’s reelection is all however sure, given his overwhelming management over the nation’s political scene and a widening crackdown on dissent, Navalny’s supporters and different critics hope to make use of the marketing campaign to erode public assist for the Kremlin chief and his navy motion in Ukraine.
“They deliberately sent him to this particular colony precisely in order to isolate Alexei as much as possible, so as not to give him any opportunity to communicate with the outside world,” she stated. “This is all happening precisely because Alexei, despite the fact that he is in prison, is still the main opponent of Vladimir Putin … It is not surprising that they began to transfer him to another colony right now, so that he could not interfere with Putin’s campaign.”
Navalny has been behind bars in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned in opposition to official corruption and arranged main anti-Kremlin protests.
He has since obtained three jail phrases and spent months in isolation in Penal Colony No. 6 for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all expenses in opposition to him as politically motivated.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”