The Russian opposition and Putin critic Alexej Navalny criticized the situation in a first interview while he was in a prison camp. He had to watch state television for several hours a day and spoke of “brainwashing”.
In his first interview from prison in Russia, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny made serious accusations against the Russian authorities. In an interview published on Wednesday with the New York Times, the opposition leader compared his penal colony in Pokrov, 100 kilometers east of Moscow, to a Chinese labor camp and spoke of a kind of brainwashing that he was being subjected to.
The days of exhausting work in Soviet gulags are over, Navalny told the “NYT”. Instead, “psychological violence” is now being used against the prisoners. He is forced to watch state television and propaganda films that are loyal to the Kremlin for eight hours a day. However, he is not allowed to read or write. “You have to sit in a chair and watch the television.” The guards also woke inmates when they fell asleep. His fellow inmates, however, didn’t bother him, said Navalny. He even had “fun” with them.
Navalny compares prison camps with Chinese labor camps
“You may imagine tattooed musclemen with steel-crowned teeth fighting knife fights to get the best bed by the window,” Navalny said. The reality in his penal colony is different. “You have to think of something like a Chinese labor camp, where everyone is lined up and video cameras are everywhere. There is constant surveillance and a culture of spying.”
A total of 54 handwritten pages with Navalny’s answers are said to have reached the journalists. His spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch confirmed on Twitter that it was the first interview since he was incarcerated in the camp.
Navalny collapsed on August 20, 2020 on a flight from Tomsk in Siberia to Moscow. Two days later, the opposition politician, still in a coma, was brought to Berlin Charité for treatment. According to analyzes by western laboratories, Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group developed in the Soviet Union.
Navalny: Russia will correct Putin’s “mistake”
After receiving treatment in Germany, Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia in January and later sentenced to more than two years in a camp for alleged violations of probation conditions.
In the “NYT” interview, the opposition was confident that Russia was heading into a future without head of state Vladimir Putin. “Sooner or later this mistake will be corrected and Russia will embark on a democratic, European path of development,” said Navalny. “Simply because that’s what people want.”
Navalny renewed his criticism of the US and European governments for their sanctions against Russia. These would hit the Russian people harder than those in power. In an interview with the New York Times, the opposition politician once again called for tough sanctions against Russian oligarchs who support Putin.
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