2023-12-25 17:01:19
Time.news – Opposition leader Alexei Navalny (sentenced in the summer to 19 years in prison for “extremism”), whose traces were lost after the transfer, was moved in great secrecy to a penal colony in the Russian Arctic from prison near Moscow on December 11th. A spokeswoman for his group reported this.
“We found Alexei Navalny. He is now in IK-3 in the Kharp settlement of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. His lawyer went to see him today. Alexei is fine,” Kira Yarmysh reported.
The penal colony in Kharp “is the most isolated place in the world”. This was underlined by Leonid Volkov, one of the closest allies of the Russian opponent. “It is almost impossible to reach this colony, it is almost impossible to even send letters there,” he commented. The Yamalo-Nenetsk region, almost 2 thousand km from Moscow, is known for long and harsh winters. The town is near Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest in the Soviet gulag system.
Two days ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “deeply concerned” about Navalny’s fate. “We once again call for his immediate release and an end to the ongoing repression of independent voices in Russia.”
And on December 21, news circulated that the Russian Interior Ministry had put the number one of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Maria Pevchikh, and the host of the YouTube channel ‘Popular Politics’ Dmitri Nizovtsev on the wanted list.
The two are wanted “pursuant to an article of the penal code” but which one it is is not specified. In August 2022, it became known that criminal cases had been opened against eight Navalny collaborators, including, in fact, Pevchikh and Nizovtsev, for “fakes” about the Russian army.
It was assumed that the reason was their statements during broadcasts on the YouTube channel ‘Politica Popolare’. In particular, a case had been opened against Pevchikh for a story about the Russian bombing of civilians in Ukraine and against Nizovtsev for words about the murder of Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers in Bucha.
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