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Alexei Navalny, a politician and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, has been sent back to a punishment cell for 5 days, his Instagram account says.
The reason for the punishment was that Navalny did not keep his hands behind his back for three seconds while being escorted to SHU the previous time.
“I'm back in SHU. It’s called an “endless loop” in programming. They put you in a punishment cell for three days for unbuttoning a button. They lead you to SHU down the corridor: “Hands behind your back!” “Uh-huh,” I put my hands behind my back. But for three seconds I walked normally. Without holding my hands behind my back. I committed a crime!”, Navalny wrote.
According to him, the order to put him in a punishment cell came “from Moscow”: “Even by the standards of a Russian prison, a punishment cell for three seconds of not holding your hands behind your back is too much.”
On August 15, Navalny was sent to SHU for the first time. The formal reason was that he “had been regularly unbuttoning” the top button of his prison robe while in the industrial zone. The politician and his comrades-in-arms believe it was a revenge for the creation of a prison trade union announced by Navalny shortly before his punishment.
Back then Navalny was placed in a punishment cell for three days but was promised that the cell would be his “permanent residence” unless he “reconsidered his attitude.”