Penitentiary administration: Navalny sent to solitary confinement for quoting ECHR decision on his imprisonment being illegal

Russian politician Alexey Navalny, currently serving his sentence in the Vladimir region’s Melekhovo penitentiary, was previously sent to solitary confinement for 15 days due to not naming the Criminal Code article, under which he had been sentenced, and the term of his punishment upon presenting himself to the penitentiary employees, representative of the Melekhovo penitentiary explained during a court hearing.

Outlet Mediazona reports, citing a correspondent present at the court hearing, at which Navalny’s lawsuits towards the penitentiary are being considered (Navalny is suing the penitentiary for sending him to solitary confinement and for being labelled a “persistent offender” - translator’s note), that Navalny had previously presented himself to the penitentiary employees by quoting a European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) decision on his prison sentence being illegal.

Representative of the penitentiary Krylov said that, during the making of the decision to send Navalny to solitary confinement for the fourth time, “the whole combination of violations during the entire time [Navalny] had spent in solitary confinement was considered”.

Navalny himself opposed the statement, saying that 15 days in solitary confinement is a disproportionate punishment for a “serial formal nit-pick”. He considers the entire thing a political persecution and asks for the decision to be cancelled, the Mediazona correspondent reports.

Navalny is currently serving his fifth stint in solitary confinement — he was sent there for the fifth time on 23 September. The administration directly told the Russian politician that he had been sent there for “speaking too much about mobilisation during the last court hearing”, his press secretary Kira Yarmysh said back then.

The first time Navalny said he had been sent to solitary confinement was on 15 August. According to him, that was punishment for “regularly unbuttoning the top button of his prison robe” while in the industrial zone. The second time was on 24 August — for “3 seconds of hands not behind his back”. The third time was on 30 August, the morning after he was released from his previous stint in solitary confinement. The fourth time was on 7 September, for 15 days.