Prisoner Alexei Navalny: I Sit Under A Portrait Of Vladimir Putin For Hours. They Claim It's An "Enlightenment Activity"

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader, politician and a critic of President Putin, Alexei Navalny, said on Friday that he is being forced to undergo various "enlightenment activities" in prison, such as sitting for several hours in front of a portrait of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

Navalny's close associates, including Leonid Volkov and his spokeswoman Kira Yarmish, described these practices as a form of torture.

In mid-June, Alexei Navalny was transferred from a prison in the city of Pokrov to a high-security penal colony in the city of Melekhov in the Vladimir region, which his allies describe as "one of the scariest prisons in Russia."

10 Hours In Front Of A Portrait Of Putin

Navalny described in a post on Facebook that in the new prison where he was transferred, he has to sew for seven hours a day, five days a week. "After work, you have to continue to sit - for several hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin," he said, adding that "this is called enlightenment activities." He also added that he had to sit on such a bench even on Sunday, his free day - for ten hours.

He characterized the new prison as a "prison within a prison" and added that his fellow prisoners are convicted murderers. According to him, the barrack in which they are keeping him is surrounded by a six-meter fence.

On March 22, the court sentenced Alexey Navalny to nine years in prison on charges of fraud and contempt of court. The Moscow City Court confirmed this verdict on May 24. Many organizations point out that the accusations were artificially constructed.

In 2020, Navalny, one of the harshest critics of the head of the Kremlin, almost did not survive an attempted poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent. He accused the Russian authorities of this act, but the Kremlin - as is quite common in similar cases - denied any responsibility.