Imprisoned Kremlin foe Navalny refuses to go away his cell and skips a courtroom listening to as a protest

MOSCOW — Imprisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny on Monday refused to go away his cell and skipped a courtroom listening to, protesting after jail officers took away all of his writing provides, his allies mentioned.

Navalny, who’s serving a 19-year jail time period, was as a result of take part in a courtroom listening to through video hyperlink on Monday on one among many lawsuits he had filed in opposition to his jail. His ally Ivan Zhdanov mentioned the politician refused to go away his cell after jail officers took away all of his writing provides.

After that, “security operatives in helmets entered the cell and, using force, dragged him to the investigator,” Zhdanov mentioned, because the politician was additionally anticipated to attend unspecified “investigative procedures,” He didn’t make clear why Navalny‘s supplies were taken away and didn’t say whether or not he was then returned to his cell.

Russia’s impartial information web site Mediazona reported that after Navalny‘s refusal to look, the courtroom listening to was adjourned till Nov. 2.

Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, campaigning in opposition to official corruption and organizing main anti-Kremlin protests. He was arrested in 2021, after he returned to Moscow from Germany the place he had recuperated from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He has since been handed three jail phrases, most not too long ago on expenses of extremism, and has confronted unrelenting strain, together with months in solitary confinement after being accused of assorted minor infractions.

Navalny, who’s at present held in a particular punitive facility in Penal Colony No. 6 within the Vladimir area east of Moscow, is because of be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the very best safety stage within the Russian penitentiary system.

Earlier this month, the Russian authorities arrested three legal professionals who represented Navalny, accusing them of collaborating in an extremist group by allegedly passing messages between Navalny and his crew. The expenses stem from a 2021 courtroom ruling that outlawed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and an unlimited community of regional places of work as extremist teams in a step that uncovered anybody concerned with them to prosecution.

Navalny‘s crew rejected the costs as politically motivated and accused the authorities of making an attempt to utterly isolate the imprisoned opposition chief from the world exterior his penal colony.