‘Our friendly concentration camp’: Russian opposition leader Navalny speaks of his prison ordeal

Alexei Navalny in January returned to Russia from Germany where he was airlifted in August following a nerve agent poisoning in Siberia

Credit: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, has said he is being kept in a "concentration camp" like something out of George Orwell’s dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" in his first letter from the penal colony where he is expected to spend two and a half years.

Mr Navalny’s lawyers were able to see him on Monday for the first time in nearly two weeks after he was transferred from another jail, saying that he seemed “energetic and in good spirits.”

Mr Navalny was sentenced last month to two and a half years in prison in what was widely regarded as a politically motivated trial after he returned to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering after being poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. He was jailed for failing to meet with his parole officer while he was out of the country.

“I have to admit that Russia’s prison system still amazes me: I had no idea that you can set up a genuine concentration camp 100 kilometres away from Moscow,” Mr Navalny wrote in a letter from the IK2 prison colony in the town of Pokrov.

He said he has not yet seen “any violence or even a hint of it” but spoke of a fear-infused environment where inmates freeze at the sight of prison guards.

“That’s what I call my new home now: our friendly concentration camp.”

Mr Navalny’s jailing, which was perceived as the Kremlin’s vendetta against its most vocal critic, triggered two weekends of nationwide protests, leading to a record number of arrests.

IK2 in the town of Pokrov 120 kilometres east of Moscow has been described by former inmates and rights groups as "one of the worst" prison colonies in Russia

Credit: Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters

His letter has confirmed earlier reports that he was bound for the IK2 colony that rights groups and former prisoners have described as “one of the worst” colonies in Russia:

“Rules, regulations, a strict schedule. CCTV everywhere, watching everyone and filing reports about the most minor infringements. Looks like someone high up read Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and said: “Oh cool! Let’s do that. Educate by dehumanising.”

Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece describes an imagined future world of mass-surveillance and totalitarian government.

Mr Navalny is subject to even more scrutiny since he has been listed as a flight risk.

“I wake up every hour at night because there’s a man in a coat standing next to my bed,” he said in the letter.

“He films everything on camera and says: ‘2.30am, Inmate Navalny. Flight risk. Presence confirmed.”

Mr Navalny, known for his pithy sense of humour, said that his prison life was “okay as long as you keep your sense of humour about things.”

The Kremlin has rejected suggestions that Mr Navalny is being persecuted for his political views and even denied that he was a victim of a chemical weapons attack after several independent European laboratories confirmed that he was poisoned with the military-grade Novichok nerve agent. 

Britain, the European Union and other countries have imposed visa bans on several top Russian officials over Mr Navalny’s poisoning, and the EU is expected to discuss further sanctions later this month.