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Kremlin critic Navalny in solitary confinement for fourth time
Jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has been placed in solitary confinement for the fourth time in a row in the penal camp where he is being held, he said on Wednesday (Sep 7).
Navalny is spending his 596th day in prison after being arrested in January last year when he returned to Russia from Germany.
He had been treated for what Western laboratory tests showed was a near-fatal attempt to poison him in Siberia with a Soviet-era nerve toxin. Russia denies trying to kill him.
He is due to spend 15 days in a solitary cell, he tweeted. Furthermore, he has been classified as a repeat offender because of alleged violations of the camp rules.
This classification means that Navalny will receive even less money for the forced labour in the camp and will be allowed to receive even fewer packages, according to his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh.
Outside visits will also be further restricted, she added. Navalny wrote that a meeting with his family that had been planned for four months was delayed.
Navalny is being held in Penal Colony 6 in Melekhovo, about 260 kilometres north-east of Moscow - under particularly harsh prison conditions.
He is currently serving a sentence allegedly for fraud but widely seen as an attempt to silence one of the Kremlin's most vocal opponents.
Germany's Scholz marks second anniversary of Navalny poisoning
The Russian judiciary is seen as controlled by the Kremlin, and has been slammed for its arbitrary rulings by human rights activists.
Navalny first gained visibility in 2008, when he started blogging about alleged corruption within Russian state-run companies.
By 2011, he had emerged as one of the leaders of the massive protests that had broken out after allegations of fraud in parliamentary elections.
