“You stop being who you are”: the dreaded prison Navalny was sent to

MOSCOW – The leader of the Russian opposition Alexei Navalny He will serve his prison sentence in a penal colony infamous for its disciplinary measures, which are considered extreme even by Russian standards. The Kremlin decided to transfer him to a prison known for the abusive treatment of detainees despite mounting criticism for his sentence, as well as the attempted poisoning murder in the middle of last year.

Navalny returned to Russia in January despite government threats to arrest him, after spending months in Berlin recovering from poisoning suffered at a Russian airport, after which he began to feel unwell in flight. He was arrested as soon as he set foot in his country and then subjected to a rigged trial, for having violated the conditions of his probation for his stay in Germany. They sentenced him to two years in prison.

After his claims for Navalny were ignored, the European Union (EU) on Monday sanctioned four senior Russian officials believed to be responsible for his persecution, in the first of a new law allowing the European bloc to sanction the perpetrators of human rights violations all over the world. .

The officials sanctioned are the Attorney General Igor Krasnov, the head of the commission of inquiry, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the National Guard, Victor V. Zolotov, and the director of the Russian prison service, Alexander Kalashnikov. The EU had already sanctioned six Russians and a state scientific research center for their role in the poisoning of Navalny.

Russia also faced yet another round of criticism on Monday over the release of a United Nations report finding Navalny poisoned with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok.

“We believe that Navalny’s poisoning with Novichok may have had the deliberate intention of sending the clear and sinister warning that this would be the fate of all those who criticize and oppose the government,” two investigators from the UN, the specialist in extrajudicial executions Agnès Callamard and expert in freedom of expression Irene Khan.

In their statement, experts say the Russian government received a copy of the report two months ago, but the response time has expired without any explanation being provided. The Russian Prison Service has not officially disclosed Navalny’s whereabouts, according to standard Russian practice of keeping detainees incommunicado during transfers and the first few weeks in their new detention center.

Yet Russian state media reports offer insight into the likely conditions of imprisonment. The place is said to be Prison Colony No.2, better known by its initials IK2, located in the Vladimir region of western Russia, east of Moscow.

In other words, Navalny would not be serving his sentence in the toughest prisons in the country, located in Siberia or the Arctic. But the IK2 colony is notorious for imposing draconian discipline and for the intensive and discretionary use of two separate punishment establishments, where inmates are not allowed to see or interact..

The place is one of the typical colony-type prisons that has evolved very little from the Gulag forced labor camps of the 1930s. The prisoners collectively live in “brigades” of several dozen, in two-story barracks. surrounded by walls and barbed wire.

Although the prison is guarded by prison guards, those who maintain discipline within each brigade are the prisoners themselves, either in collusion with the guards – groups called “militants” – or as leaders of criminal gangs. within the community. “thieves under the law.”

According to former prisoners of this penal colony, IK2 is under the control of an “activist” group – prisoners and guards – an arrangement which will allow the directors of the establishment to have permanent control over Navalny’s life. . In Russian prison jargon, prisons controlled by “militants” are called “red zones”.

Dimitri Dyomushkin, a nationalist politician imprisoned in the colony, describes living conditions in the separate punishment unit, where Navalny could end up for any trifle, such as having his prison uniform stained. “It’s psychologically devastating,” says Dyomushkin.

Inmates, for example, have to shave every morning, but cannot do it themselves because they are not allowed to have razors in their hands. So it is the “militants” who shave the members of the brigade, and cuts and bleeds are not uncommon, Dyomushkin recalls.

In the punishment unit, inmates spend hours standing with their hands cuffed behind their backs and looking at the ground because they are prohibited from making eye contact with the guards, Dyomushkin said in an interview with Echo Radio. Moscow. There is also no division between the toilets and inmates are forced to relieve themselves in the presence of an activist.

“They have a thousand ways of putting pressure on Navalny,” said Dyomushkin, referring to the opposition leader’s stay in IK2. Under these conditions, he said, “You stop being who you are”.

Translation of Jaime Arrambide

The New York Times