Alexei Navalny will not be silent

'Greetings from solitary confinement'

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Editorials

August 19, 2022 - 3:15 PM

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears on a screen set up at a courtroom of the Moscow City Court via a video link from his prison colony. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

Alexei Navalny, the most prominent voice opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin, now serving an 11½-year prison sentence on phony charges, cannot sit still or stay quiet. He recently declared himself a “one-man labor union” dedicated to improving prison conditions. The authorities threw him into solitary confinement, a form of mental and physical torture.

An action-reaction cycle has marked Mr. Navalny’s long crusade against the Putin regime’s corruption and despotism: He criticizes, Mr. Putin punishes. And yet Mr. Navalny perseveres. He passes messages through lawyers and supporters, and they post them on Twitter.

“Greetings from solitary confinement,” his account tweeted Monday.

“The Kremlin wants to see its Gulag composed of silent slaves. But here I am, rallying people and demanding that some laws be obeyed, instead of begging for pardon.”

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