A chilling announcement greeted a lawyer when Alexei Navalny tried to visit a Kremlin enemy imprisoned in Pokrov (IK-2), a penal colony about two and a half hours east of Moscow on Tuesday. ..
“There is no such conviction here,” officials said calmly, according to a social media post by Navalny’s close companion Leonid Volkov.
The news of Navalny’s disappearance immediately warned about the safety of the 46-year-old, given that he was probably Vladimir Putin’s most prominent Russian critic. His challenge to the Kremlin’s crackdown was seen as a threat, even before the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine plunged control into a serious Paranoia crouch.
In 2009, tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten and killed in a Russian prison after exposing extensive Kremlin corruption. Opponent activist Ildar Dadin also explained the inhumane treatment of prisoners. “If I face torture, beatings and rape again, I wouldn’t be able to withstand more than a week,” Dadin said. Written in 2016..
Navalny survived Attempts of addiction by Russian security services He recovered in Germany in 2020, but returned to Russia last summer. He was arrested on fictitious charges..
He was sentenced to nine years earlier this year, about a month after Putin invaded Ukraine.
Navalny’s lawyers try to visit him on weekdays, primarily to make sure he is alive and not tortured.
“Unfortunately, the rule of law does not apply to Russia, especially Alexei Navalny,” said Navalny’s close associate. Anti-Corruption Foundation, Founded by Navalny.
“Of course, neither Alexei’s lawyer nor his relatives were informed in advance of his transfer.” Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmish wrote on Twitter. “There were rumors that he would be transferred to the high-security penal colony IK-6” Melekhovo “, but it is impossible to know when (and when) he will actually arrive there. “
Yarmish wrote a news report on Twitter about the transfer of Melehobo to prison. Was not confirmed At Nawarney Camp.
Melekhovo is further east of Navalny’s former prison in Pokrov, but not as far as the penal colony east of the Ural Mountains in Siberia. During the Soviet era, prisoners filled the camp, Gulag, in the frozen end of the empire. There, I was able to abuse without worrying about oversight.
To date, Russian penal colony Notorious brutalEspecially for the prominent critics of the Putin administration.
“We are not currently in contact with Alexei,” Veduta told Yahoo News by phone. “He is in the hands of the same people who tried to assassinate him in the first place.”
Transfer of prisoners known as etapirovanie In Russia, prisoners can lose Russia’s physical and bureaucratic vastness, during which time it can be a particularly ruthless and protracted case.
“The fact that people disappear from the perspective of relatives and rights workers is itself scandalous, especially in modern times.” Prison reformer Valerie Sergeyev told Radio Free Europe in 2013..
“Sometimes people die on the road,” Veduta told Yahoo News. “Or it’s badly tortured. There’s no oversight.”
Nor will he move to Melehobo to support Navalny’s supporters. “This penal colony is known as the toughest and most painful place in Russia as a whole,” Veduta said.