On Thursday, Russia’s Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit filed by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny challenging jail regulations that allow prison personnel to deny him stationary.
Navalny claimed in the lawsuit that he was no longer provided with a pen and paper by prison officials in a restricted housing unit, where he is kept in isolation.
Navalny Challenging Prison Regulations
Navalny is serving a nine-year term in a high-security colony in Melekhovo, 250 kilometres (150 miles) east of Moscow, for fraud and contempt of court.
Another trial on extremism accusations against the Kremlin’s archfoe began this week in the penal colony. If convicted, Navalny will be imprisoned for at least another two decades.
According to Navalny’s complaint, authorities had no right to refuse him the pen and paper supplied to all detainees because he was in a punishment cell without a table or there was no writing space in his prison schedule.
#Russia's Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny contesting prison regulations that allow prison officials to deprive him of stationery and pens.https://t.co/ZVGQowtrXh
— The Hindu (@the_hindu) June 22, 2023
Navalny attended the Supreme Court hearing from the Melekhovo colony via video link. He stated in a distinctively cynical social media post on the eve of the hearing, “Some are being given a pen and paper for an hour [...] In my case, the time for writing materials was removed from my schedule entirely. How come? The prison chief decided so, that’s how.”
“I’m not asking for extra food, I’m not asking for a Christmas tree to be put in my cell... we’re talking about the basic human right to have a pen in the cell and a sheet of paper to write a letter or (complaint) to the court,” Navalny told the judge, as reported by Mediazona.
The complaint is one of many filed by Navalny against prison officials, citing numerous violations of his rights as a felon. However, Russian courts have dismissed all of his cases and petitions.
During the hearing, officials claimed there was nothing wrong with prison rules, and that Navalny should be provided with a pen and paper anytime he requested them if he was not needed to do something else. Subsequently, the Supreme Court dismissed Navalny’s allegation that things operated differently in his jail and rejected his lawsuit.
Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared before a Russian court to defend himself against new charges of extremism that could extend his prison term by decades https://t.co/BgWx6kISsT pic.twitter.com/DD1EM3mbMK
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 19, 2023
Who is Navalny?
Navalny, an anti-corruption activist, has long been the most recognised face of Russia’s opposition to President Vladimir Putin. He was labelled an “extremist” in Russia, and came dangerously close to death in August 2020, when he was attacked with a Novichok nerve agent in Siberia.
The former lawyer gained recognition through blogs that he claimed showed widespread corruption among the Russian elite. The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) he formed has made several allegations of official corruption. He argues that Russia is controlled by “crooks and thieves.”
Navalny accused Putin of “sucking the blood out of Russia” by establishing a “feudal state” that concentrates authority in the Kremlin. He compares the patronage system to Tsarist Russia.
Navalny was arrested in January 2021, after exposing government corruption and organising major anti-Kremlin protests. He was arrested several times for organising public demonstrations and charged with corruption, embezzlement, and fraud. He claims that the charges and convictions are politically motivated.
Additionally, Navalny has stated that the extremist allegations, which he calls “absurd,” could put him in prison for another 30 years. He said an investigator informed him that he would face another military trial on terrorist accusations, which may result in a life sentence.
Russian officials portray Navalny as an extreme tool of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intelligence agency, which they claim is seeking to plant the seeds of revolution to destabilise Russia and turn it into a client state of the West.