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Alexei Navalny joined the video during a court hearing in May 2022
Photo:
IMAGO/Anton Denisov / IMAGO/SNA
The imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he has to sit for hours under a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his new prison.
Navalny wrote on Facebook that he was forced to sew seven hours a day, five days a week and then to sit under the portrait on a wooden bench.
Supporters of the detainee described his new everyday life as "torture".
Even on Sunday, his day off, he had to sit on a wooden bench with other prisoners for ten hours, Navalny continued.
"It's called an educational measure."
»prison in prison«
Navalny was transferred in June from a penal colony in Pokrov to another penal colony - according to his allies "one of the most fearsome prisons in Russia".
The Kremlin critic himself had described his new prison as a "prison within a prison" and said he was surrounded by convicted murderers.
There is a six meter high fence around his prison barracks.
Navalny is the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and became known for exposing corruption cases in Russia.
He was immediately arrested in January 2021 after his return from Berlin.
In Germany, he spent several months recovering from an attack with the neurotoxin Novichok, for which he blames the Kremlin.
According to research by SPIEGEL, the Bellingcat platform and other partners, at least eight agents from the Russian secret service FSB were involved in the poisoning of Navalny.
Moscow denies the allegations.
Since his imprisonment, the Russian authorities have cracked down on critical voices and independent media, especially since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Navalny's most important organizations were banned.
The Kremlin critic himself and some of his associates were put on the authorities' list of "terrorists and extremists" in January
svs/AFP
