Politician and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) Alexei Navalny has been sent to a punishment cell for the third time: he will spend 7 days there allegedly for “incorrectly introducing himself.” His statement was published on social media: on his Instagram page and his Telegram channel.
The politician had already been to the SHU twice, spending three and five days there, respectively. He called the punishment cell “a hellish closet” and an utterly unpleasant place.
“Hey, you're going to laugh, but I'm back in the SHU. They let me out Sunday night, and then on Monday afternoon they locked me up again, and, well, they make no secret of the fact that I won’t be getting out of this hole again.”
He suggested they would keep sending him there for 15 days until he “calms down.”
“The fact of the matter is that I am “too politically active for a prisoner.” The prisoners' union I created is a great annoyance: “We didn't put him in jail for him to create unions here.”
The politician also added that the Kremlin is “furious” at the work of promoting the list of six thousand people, which includes “oligarchs, corrupt officials and warmongers.” The FBK is demanding that sanctions be imposed against those on the list.
“Their message is: don’t think we're embarrassed to keep you in the SHU for ridiculous reasons? Okay. You want us banned from Nice and London? Well, in that case you won't just be sitting in jail, but on an iron stool in a two-by-three-meter cell eating nothing but swill.
Navalny added he would “do more time,” and that “you have to pay a price” for the truth and independence.
On August 24, Navalny was sent to a punishment cell for the second time for five days for not holding his hands behind his back for three seconds while being escorted. Navalny was placed in a punishment cell for the first time on August 15: the formal reason was that he “regularly unbuttoned” the top button of his prison robe while in the industrial zone. The politician himself and his comrades-in-arms believe that this was revenge for the creation of a labor union for prisoners, which Navalny had announced shortly before. At the time, he was placed in a punishment cell for three days but was promised the cell would become his “permanent residence” unless he “reconsidered his attitude.”