The imprisoned Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, said he was in a punishment cell for three days for minor violations of prison rules. He said through his lawyers on Twitter yesterday that he was fined for not regularly buttoning the top button of his prison uniform. He also tried to persuade other prisoners to create a union.
“The solitary confinement cell is a 2.5 by 3 meter concrete cage. It’s unbearable there most of the time because it’s cold and wet. There is water on the floor,” wrote President Vladimir Putin’s opponent, adding wryly: “I have the beach version – it’s very hot there and there is almost no draft.”
The window is small, there is no ventilation. “At night you lie there and you feel like a fish out of water. At 5 am they take your mattress and pillow away (…) and lift your bunk up. At 9 pm the bunk is lowered again and the mattress is returned. There is an iron table, an iron bench, a sink, a hole in the floor and two cameras in the ceiling.”
Navalny is serving his sentence for violations of probation, fraud and contempt of court at the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo, about 250 km east of Moscow.