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Alexei Navalny during the trial against him
Photo: MAXIM SHEMETOV / REUTERS
In a photo he took himself, he can be seen with his hair shorn close and in a prison uniform: Alexej Navalny has complained in a self-written post on Instagram and through his lawyers about harassment in the IK-2 prison camp, a hundred kilometers from Moscow.
How Navalny dropped the news his lawyers refused to comment.
The 44-year-old officially has no access to the internet.
According to his own statements, he has already received six warnings, among other things because he got up from bed ten minutes before the command to "get up" and refused to take part in morning exercises.
Now the detained Kremlin critic fears he will end up in solitary confinement: "If you get two warnings, you can be transferred to a punishment cell and that is uncomfortable, the conditions there border on torture." The prison administration did not respond to the allegations.
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Navalny's self-made photo with short hair
Photo: INSTAGRAM @NAVALNY
A Russian court sentenced Navalny to prison in February.
The reason: During his stay in Germany, where he was recovering from a neurotoxin murder attack in Russia, he is said to have violated reporting requirements to Russian authorities in an earlier criminal case.
The EU and the USA criticize the action against Navalny as politically motivated.
They are demanding his release and have imposed sanctions on Russia, among other things, for the attack on the politician.
Dozens of Russian doctors meanwhile demanded rapid medical help for Navalny in an open letter and in a video message because of a back problem.
The medics demanded adequate treatment in order to "avert danger to his life and health."
"We fear the worst," it says in the letter.
Specifically, the doctors called for a neurologist to have access to the 44-year-old and the use of modern diagnostic technology.
They also recalled that the prisoner is still weakened after the assassination attempt with the Novichok neurotoxin in August.
The Kremlin declared that it was not responsible and therefore declined to comment on the doctors' letter.
Nawalny's employees also complained about new repression.
Ivan Zhdanov criticized the fact that his 66-year-old father had been arrested on trumped-up charges.
"You want to make my life hell," wrote Zhdanov on Facebook.
The arrest of his sick father is the worst thing the system could do to him.
as / Reuters / dpa / AFP