MOSCOW, 26 JAN – Alexey Navalny’s allies have announced on social media that Putin’s number one rival has been locked up in solitary confinement again, for the eleventh time since August. According to spokeswoman Kira Yarmish, this time the official reason is that the opponent, in prison for political reasons, allegedly “presented himself incorrectly”, the pretext with which he was inflicted eight days of punishment. Novaya Gazeta Europa points out that in just over five months Navalny was forced to spend 113 days in a penalty cell. These continuous measures against the opponent, according to NGOs and opponents, are inflicted for specious reasons and considered an abuse of power by the authorities. Already in September, Amnesty International wrote that Navalny’s “health and well-being” “are at serious risk, and this amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. Fears for the dissident’s health have rekindled in recent weeks, when one of his lawyers stated that Navalny was in a penalty cell with a fever and cough and that the guards did not give him the medicines he needed. On January 17, on the second anniversary of the opponent’s arrest, his allies launched #FreeNavalny, a public campaign calling for the dissident’s release. In recent days, journalists Nobel Peace Prize winners Dmitri Muratov and Maria Ressa have asked for an intervention by the International Red Cross to put an end to the abuses against Navalny. On Tuesday, a copy of the cramped punishment cell in which Navalny is repeatedly locked up was unveiled outside the Russian embassy in Berlin to protest the dire conditions imposed on the dissident. (HANDLE).
(ANSA)
