Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny says prison officials intentionally assigned inmate with poor hygiene to share his cell

Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, who is currently serving a nine-year sentence at Correctional Colony No. 6 in Russia’s Vladimir region, reported Tuesday that a prisoner with poor hygiene was put in his cell for the second time, presumably as a way to punish Navalny himself.

Navalny wrote on Instagram:

Remember when I wrote about the poor guy who was made out to be a malicious offender just so they could stick him in my punitive isolation cell and make my life more difficult? Well, anyway: he served his 15 days, a little shocked at what was happening and very shocked that he, a guy with a limp, had to climb up to the second bunk, and then he left. Then, two days later — ta-da! — they bring him back. They threw the poor guy back into the punitive isolation cell for 15 days for “smoking outside of the designated area.”

According to Navalny, prison employees cleared the idea of assigning the man to Navalny’s cell with Russian Federal Penitentiary Service Director Arkady Gostev.

“So it’s clear that they’re trying to get to me, but they shouldn’t just shamelessly use a live person as a tool,” Navalny wrote. “Nobody even thought about how the unwashed prisoner felt. What’s it like for him to be in the punitive isolation cell [for 15 days]? Does his health permit it? For [prison officials], human beings don’t exist; the man is just a talking object they can use however they please.

Navalny said that he explained to the man that “he needs to become the cleanest convict in the prison, and then it will stop making sense for them to use him.”