Navalny was transferred to a correctional colony in the Vladimir region

Alexei Navalny was taken to correctional colony No. 2 in the Vladimir region. On February 27, employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service received him and a group of convicts, Open Media reports with reference to Rus Sitting Foundation member Ruslan Vakhapov.

The human rights activist notes that the “acceptance” was carried out in accordance with internal regulations. The fact that no one was beaten surprised other prisoners. Some of them are not happy about the presence of a politician, because they are afraid that because of this the colony may be “tightened.” In IK-2, the “actives”—prisoners who collaborate with the colony administration—have great influence.

Navalny will have to spend at least a week in quarantine, after which he will be assigned to a detachment.

At about 2:00 p.m., a message appeared on the website “ONK Newspaper” from the secretary of the Moscow POC, Alexei Melnikov, who stated that Navalny had indeed been transferred to the Vladimir region.

12:00 Navalny’s colleagues told Open Media that his legal representatives have still not been notified of his whereabouts.

16:30 Lawyer Maria Eismont, who defended Konstantin Kotov and collaborated in this case with OVD-Info, commented on the situation in IK-2 in the Vladimir region, where her client was held for a year:

I know this colony quite well and went there at least 20 times while Kostya Kotov spent a little over a year there. Firstly, in IK-2, the communication of convicts with the outside world is completely controlled, this connection is limited. There is no FSIN letter in the colony, although the technical ability to implement this service is available. But for some reason, the administration of IK-2 FSIN does not issue the letter. Letters, of course, reach there, but it takes a long time and not all of them. There is no fast electronic communication with prisoners in the colony.

Secondly, the colony is doing everything to complicate meetings with lawyers. When I came to Kotov, I had to wait on average five hours. These hours of waiting are endless. Also, we, Kotov’s lawyers, had to enforce the confidentiality of meetings with our client. Among other things, we had to ensure that a slot was made in the glass through which we spoke with Kotov for the transfer of confidential documents.

I know from colleagues who also went to IK-2 to see their clients that the employees of the institution handed them papers with the refusal of lawyers from the convicts. We have every reason to believe that these refusals are forced and related to pressure. Once they brought me a piece of paper from Kotov, where he asked me not to take my mobile phone with me to meetings. Lawyers have the right to take telephones into colonies, the Supreme Court declared this in 2017. I consider this request from Kotov to be the result of pressure.

In principle, IK-2 is aimed at isolating a person from the outside world and creating the most psychologically uncomfortable conditions of detention: the administration can even force convicts to stop communicating with a certain prisoner, as happened with Kotov.

• On February 2, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow satisfied the request of the Federal Penitentiary Service to replace the suspended sentence with a real one in the Yves Rocher case. On February 20, the Moscow City Courtupheld this decision . According to the court decision, Navalny will spend two and a half years in prison. Before the court decision came into force at the request of the Federal Penitentiary Service to replace Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real one in the framework of the Yves Rocher case, the politician was kept in pre-trial detention center No. 99/1 of federal subordination, located on the territory of the Moscow pre-trial detention center “Matrosskaya Tishina”.
• Navalny decided to return to Russia after completing a course of treatment and rehabilitation in Germany: he was taken there by plane after being poisoned with Novichok, for which the politician blamed the FSB . After his return, he was detained and then taken into custody .
• In connection with the detention of Alexei Navalny, a series of protests took place throughout Russia. The largest protests took place on Saturday, January 23, and Sunday, January 31. Security forces reacted harshly to the protests: on January 23, more than 4,000 people were detained, and on January 31, more than 5,500 . On the day the FSIN petition was considered, February 2, arrests also took place in Moscow and other cities: according to OVD-Info, more than 1,500 people were detained that day.
• In 2014, brothers Alexei and Oleg Navalny were found guilty of fraud (Part 2 and Part 3 of Article 159.4 of the Criminal Code) and money laundering (Part 2 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code) in the Yves Rocher case. Oleg was sentenced to three and a half years of real life, Alexey - to three and a half years of probation. According to investigators, the brothers stole more than 26 million rubles from the Yves Rocher Vostok company and more than four million rubles from the Multidisciplinary Processing Company. Back in 2013, Yves Rocher provided the Investigative Committee with a report according to which no damage was caused to the company.