Quote for the Week

Week-ending 4 June 2021

“I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at night. What did I do? Did I climb the fence? Did I dig up an underpass? Or was I wringing a pistol from someone? Just explain why they named me a flight risk!”

-Aleksei Navalny speaking to the Petushinsky district court in Vladimir region via video link.

Aleksei Navalny told a court this week that the hourly nighttime checks to which he is subjected in the penal colony where he is imprisoned amount to torture. The court rejected his request on the grounds that he constitutes a ‘flight risk.’

Sources:

RFE/RL, 31 May 2021: Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny asked a court on May 31 to halt the hourly nighttime checks he has been subjected to in his penal colony, saying the measure amounts to “torture.” Speaking to the court in a video link from prison, Navalny said that he has done nothing that would warrant the authorities’ decision to designate him as a flight risk that has resulted in the checks. “I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at night,” he told the Petushinsky District Court in the Vladimir region. “What did I do? Did I climb the fence? Did I dig up an underpass? Or was I wringing a pistol from someone? Just explain why they named me a flight risk!”

RFE/RL, 2 June 2021: A court in Russia’s Vladimir region has rejected imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s request to annul his designated status as a “flight risk,” which subjects him to hourly nighttime checks while he is incarcerated at a penal colony. The court ruled on June 2 that Navalny’s right to have eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night had not been violated by guards at Correctional Colony No. 2. Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said the ruling will be appealed.