Simon Bourtembourg, edited by Laura Laplaud
Alexei Navalny is the Kremlin’s number one enemy. This opponent of Vladimir Putin has been locked up for more than two years in a 6m2 jail, which was also presented in the center of Paris on Tuesday by his supporters. Who is this man who has become the symbol of opposition to the head of the Kremlin?
A life-size replica of Alexei Navalny’s solitary confinement cell was presented on Tuesday in the center of Paris by his supporters. It is in a 6m2 jail that the number one enemy of the Kremlin has been locked up for more than two years. The reason ? Failure to comply with a judicial review related to a previous conviction. Who is this man who has become the symbol of opposition to Vladimir Putin?
The symbol of opposition to Vladimir Putin
Charismatic colossus with blue eyes, Alexeï Navalny has doggedly denounced and documented the large-scale corruption of Russian power for almost 15 years. His fight meets a certain echo in society. In 2011, he managed to bring together more than 100,000 people in the streets of Moscow. Alexei Navalny, however, remains tolerated by power and even runs for president in 2018 before being declared ineligible. Having become cumbersome, the FSB condemns it in August 2020. The opponent drinks a poisoned tea before boarding a plane. He survives, rescued in emergency in Germany.
Navalny sleeps in one of the harshest prisons in the country
Back in Russia, Alexeï Navalny commits the crime of lèse-majesté in 2021 with the denunciation of a massive and fraudulent enrichment of Vladimir Putin himself. He was then imprisoned in March of the same year in the IK-2 prison in Pokrov, one of the most severe in the country. But in June 2022, Alexei Navalny was transferred to the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo. A high-security establishment that Navalny’s spokeswoman describes as “monstrous”, even in a country where “abuse and torture are used against inmates in many prisons”.