Opponent and anti-corruption activist Alexeï Navalny, imprisoned for a year and a half in Russia, said Monday that he had been placed in a disciplinary cell after having undertaken to form a union of prisoners.
“Hello everyone from the mitard.
Union struggle is never easy, but then what about unions in prison,” he wrote in a post on social media.
He says he was placed in solitary confinement for three days for breaking the rules by unbuttoning the top of his convict outfit.
According to him, the management threatened to make this jail "his permanent residence" if he did not change his attitude.
A “concrete niche”
Navalny describes his cell as a "concrete niche" with a chair, a retractable bed, a sink and "a hole in the ground".
At the moment, it is “very hot”.
“At night you feel like a fish lying on the shore,” Navalny writes.
“I am a model of responsible consumption.
In my cell, there is only a cup and a book.
They only give a spoon and a plate at mealtimes,” he says, with his usual irony.
Two cameras observe him.
Visits and mail are prohibited.
An hour's walk a day "in a similar cell, but with a bit of sky".
He says he is entitled to paper and a pen every day for an hour and fifteen minutes.
“I am sitting on my iron bench in front of my iron table.
I'm writing this message and I'm going to write instructions for the zeks (Russian prisoners) on their rights to work, as long as they don't take the paper from me.
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First union victory
Last week, Alexei Navalny, 46, claimed to have started a union in his prison near the town of Vladimir - 200 km east of Moscow - where he works in a sewing workshop.
He claims to have won "his first victory" by having the stools of the inmates working in the workshop replaced by chairs.
In March, Alexei Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison under a "severe" regime for charges of embezzlement which he considers fictitious.
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