Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who is serving a term in a strict regime colony No. 6 (IK-6) in Melehovo, Vladimir region, has been transferred to a punishment cell (SHIZO). “I was summoned from the barracks to a commission, where they announced that the video recordings show: I, being in the industrial zone, regularly unbutton the top button of my robe (it’s just a few sizes smaller for me). notorious incorrigible villain. Therefore, the decision to put me in a punishment cell is accepted,” reads Navalny’s Facebook account on Monday, August 15th.

According to the politician, he has been sent to ShIZO for three days so far. “But,” added the interim chief happily, “in mid-September I have a meeting with relatives, which I have to do once every four months. Visits are prohibited for those held at ShIZO, so if I “don’t reconsider my attitude”, then the detention center will become my permanent residence.” added Navalny.

Last week, Alexei Navalny announced that he had established a “prisoners and jailers union” called the “Industrial Zone” to protect the rights of prisoners and prison staff. At first, IK-6 management took Navalny’s official statement as a joke, but later declared the union’s creation “illegal” and issued a warning to the opposition.

Navalny case

Alexei Navalny was sent to prison after Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court changed his suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case to an actual sentence of 3.5 years in early February. The formal reason was that the oppositionist did not appear at the penitentiary commission to report on the days designated for this, but since August 2020, after being poisoned by Novichok and taken to Germany for treatment, he has stopped going to the inspector.

Navalny and his lawyers assured the court that the oppositionist was physically unable to visit the inspector as he was inpatient and later on outpatient treatment at a German clinic and notified the prison inspectorate about this.

On March 22, a court sentenced Alexei Navalny to nine years of strict rule in the case of “fraud and insult to the court”. The visiting session of the Lefortovo court took place at Pokrov penal colony No. 2, where Navalny was already serving his sentence in the Yves Rocher case. Prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova asked for 13 years in a strict regime colony for him. Navalny was transferred to IK-6 on 14 June.