Alexeï Navalny, recently transferred to a penal colony in the Arctic, complained about his conditions of detention.
Russian Supreme Court rejects complaints filed by Alexei Navalny against his detention conditions. The imprisoned opponent challenged the right to have no more than one book in solitary confinement cells, as well as the 15-minute limit imposed on prisoners to eat their hot meal.
Alexei Navalny appeared before the Moscow court via video link from the detention center in the Yamalo-Nenets region, where he was transferred at the end of December, for serve a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism”.
The colony where Navalny is currently detained, nicknamed “Polar Wolf”is an establishment inherited from the Soviet Gulag. The opponent posted a photo of the tiny fenced prison courtyard in which he can walk very early in the morning, when temperatures are very low. Alexeï Navalny, with a willingly ironic tone in his messages, mentioned the “wonderful fresh air blowing in the courtyard despite the concrete wall”noting that the mercury had not yet fallen below -32 degrees Celsius.
The time spent behind bars has already had consequences on his health, according to his supporters, and the once radiant activist now appears emaciated and aged. In Western countries, his conditions of detention, and in particular their consequences on his physical state, are strongly denounced..
