Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey\u00a0Navalny\u00a0told a Moscow court of \u201cfreezing\u201d conditions inside his prison, as he appeared via video link to outline his case against the authorities at the Siberian penal colony in which he is being held. <\/p>\n
Addressing the Supreme Court in Moscow, the opposition figure described the harsh conditions he is enduring in Artic prison, where he was transferred to last month, alleging freezing temperatures and a 10-minute limit on eating food. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is impossible to eat in 10 minutes,\u201d he told the supreme court judge in Moscow. \u201cIf you eat every day within 10 minutes, then this meal turns into a rather complex process.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe punishment cell is often a very cold place,\u201d he continued. \u201cDo you know why people choose a newspaper there? To cover themselves. Because with a newspaper, I can tell you judges, it is much warmer to sleep for example than without one. And so you need a newspaper so as not to freeze.\u201d <\/p>\n
The opposition figure is suing the prison authorities over the conditions of his detention. <\/p>\n
Fears for Navalny\u2019s wellbeing mounted last month after his team\u00a0could not reach him\u00a0for a fortnight in December. On December 25, his team said that they had finally managed to locate him at the Siberian penal colony in Kharp, to which he had been transferred. <\/p>\n
Navalny\u00a0alleged that authorities are limiting the number of religious texts he can have, saying: \u201c[The regulations] say that I am allowed to have 10 books. I need 2 books to practice my religion. One book is not enough for me, it directly violates my religious rights.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to have in my cell 10 books. I need them for education, I need them for religious practice.\u201d <\/p>\n
The reason for the limit,\u00a0Navalny\u00a0alleges, is to prevent the study of Islam and that \u201csome restrictions are constantly being invented,\u201d such as a ban on Muslim rosary beads, while he says a Christian cross is allowed. <\/p>\n
Countering the allegation that there are specific restrictions for Muslim inmates, the court\u2019s Justice Ministry representative called\u00a0Navalny\u2019s allegations \u201cpolitical statements.\u201d <\/p>\n
The representative also told the judge that prison officers can bring\u00a0Navalny\u00a0up to 10 books during the day; there are no prohibitions, but he can only keep one in his cell overnight. <\/p>\n
Navalny was sentenced to\u00a019 years in prison\u00a0in August last year after being found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities and numerous other crimes. He was already serving sentences of\u00a011-and-a-half years\u00a0in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies. <\/p>\n
Supporters of Navalny claim his arrest and incarceration are a politically motivated attempt to stifle his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. <\/p>\n\n
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey\u00a0Navalny\u00a0told a Moscow court of \u201cfreezing\u201d conditions inside his prison, as he appeared via video link to outline his case against the authorities at the Siberian penal colony in which he is being held. Addressing the Supreme Court in Moscow, the opposition figure described the harsh conditions he is enduring in Artic <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}