Opponent and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, jailed for a year and a half in Russia, said on Monday he had been placed in a disciplinary cell after he proposed forming a prison union, AFP reported.

“Welcome to everyone in prison. Trade unionism is never easy, but then what happens to trade unions in prison?” he wrote in a message posted on social media.

He says he was put in solitary confinement for three days because he broke the rules by removing his prison uniform top. According to him, the management threatened to make the cell a “permanent residence” if he did not change his attitude.

He describes his cell as a “concrete alcove” with a chair, a pull-out bed, a sink and “a hole in the floor.” It is “very hot” at the moment. “At night, you feel like a fish on land,” writes Navalny.

“I am a model of responsible consumption. I only have a mug and a book in my cell. There is only a spoon and a plate at the table,” he says with his usual irony.

He is watched by two cameras. Visiting and correspondence are prohibited. An hour’s walk a day “in the same cell, but with a piece of sky.” He says that he is allowed to use pen and paper for one hour and fifteen minutes each day.

“I’m sitting on my iron bench in front of my iron table. I’m writing this message and I’m going to write instructions for the zeks (Russian prisoners) about their rights to work, if they don’t. take my paper,” said the social media account opponent.

Last week, 46-year-old Oleksii Navalny announced that he had created a trade union in his prison near the city of Volodymyr – at

In March, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in a “strict” prison on charges of embezzlement, which he believed to be fabricated.

The dissident was arrested in January 2021 after returning to Russia after being treated in Germany for poisoning, saying the Kremlin was behind it.