Navalny denied phone calls in prison

Alexey Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader and Putin’s critic, has shared in a series of tweets that he is not allowed to call his relatives from the Melekhovo penitentiary, the corrective colony he was moved to in June.

According to Navalny, his phone calls are put into the “schedule” in a way that makes it impossible for them to actually take place. For example, his lawyer is kept waiting for hours before he is let in to see Navalny, then Navalny is offered a choice: to meet with his lawyer or to call his family.

“All the other convicts in the unit get regular calls to their relatives, but they don't allow them to me. “Such is our daily routine, it's your own fault.” They say this with such a sly and satisfied look and so meaningfully that you can tell right away: orders came from Moscow,” explained Navalny.

Previously, Navalny said that he had been assigned to the same unit as murder convicts. The politician was moved to the Melekhovo penitentiary on 14 June. Soon after, he received his first disciplinary warning. According to him, after two disciplinary warnings, he can be sent to solitary confinement.

On 22 March, a Moscow court sentenced Navalny to nine years in a high-security prison and issued him a fine of 1.2 million rubles (€20,000) for fraud and contempt of court. The Moscow City Court rejected an appeal.

At the end of May, the politician said that he had been newly charged for “creating an extremist organisation”. Navalny is facing up to 15 more years added to his sentence.