2023-12-12 22:24:30
By Alain Barluet
Published 2 hours ago, Updated now
Alexeï Navalny while awaiting a hearing in Moscow in May 2022. EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / REUTERS
Russia’s best-known political prisoner was last seen on December 5 in the IK-6 penal colony. He could have been transferred to a remote place of detention with an even harsher regime.
Correspondent in Moscow
The link seems explicit between the Kremlin’s political agenda and the very worrying situation of the opponent Alexeï Navaly, whose relatives had not heard from him for a week on Tuesday. Russia’s best-known political prisoner was last seen on December 5 in the IK-6 penal colony in Milikhovo, 235 kilometers east of Moscow, where he is serving a 30-year prison sentence for various convictions . The next day, his lawyer was refused access to the prison. In the following days, Navalny did not appear by video link at further hearings to which he was summoned, this time for “ vandalism » – officially because of problems of “ Electric power » in the colony….
Finally, on December 11, prison staff told the lawyer that his client was no longer on the colony’s list of inmates, without specifying where he was. A situation considered worrying by Alexei Navalny’s supporters, according to whom he could have been transferred to a remote place of detention with an even harsher regime than IK-6 where he has been imprisoned since 2021. Washington reacted by saying it was very “ very concerned » by the absence of information concerning the opponent’s location, calling once again for his immediate release.
Read alsoNavalny denounces the “scandalous and illegal” arrest of his lawyers
This “disappearance” of Alexei Navalny, considered the Kremlin’s bête noire, is concomitant with the announcement, last Thursday, by the Council of the Federation, the Russian Senate, of the date of the next presidential election, March 17, 2024. Last Friday, Vladimir Putin declared himself, unsurprisingly, a candidate for a fifth term. At the same time, the opponent’s team also launched the campaign by calling Telegram the Russians to “go to the polling stations and vote against Vladimir Putin”. According to Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s close collaborator, now in exile, the situation inflicted on the opponent in recent days therefore constitutes “0% a coincidence” with the Russian president’s political calendar. “It’s no secret who Putin’s main opponent is in this “election”declares Mr. Volkov, quoted by the site Xholod. The head of the Kremlin “wants to make sure Navalny’s voice is not heard”. It is true that despite his imprisonment, the 46-year-old prisoner, survivor of a poisoning attributed to the Russian “services” in August 2020, continued to intervene thanks to his lawyers and his supporters.
Everyone declares themselves extremely concerned about the state of health of Alexeï Navalny who is very regularly sent to a punitive isolation cell measuring two by three meters without ventilation where he is prohibited from lying down from 6 to 10 p.m.. “A few days before his disappearance, he felt dizzy and was put on a drip”said his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh, adding that Navalny was “literally tortured by hunger”. During his detention, he appeared very thin and lost around twenty kilos. He was diagnosed with two herniated discs and is also said to be suffering from a stomach illness.
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