Rights defender Nagavkin's stay in punishment cell extended

The administration of the penal colony located in the town of Uryupinsk has extended the custody term in the dungeon (punishment cell) of Igor Nagavkin, who has declared a hunger strike, having treated him as a malicious violator; they prepare documents to transfer him to a general regime colony.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Nagavkin was found guilty on June 26, 2024, of disrupting the work of the SIZO (pre-trial prison) in Leninsk. Following a complaint from the Prosecutor's Office, the Volgograd Regional Court has replaced his conditional two-year sentence with a real one. Nagavkin complained about the custody conditions of convicts in the colony located in the Volgograd Region, where he is serving his sentence. On November 19, it became known that he had been placed into the punishment cell, where he had declared a hunger strike.

Valentin Bogdan, the Acting Chairman of the Fund "In Defence of Prisoners' Rights"*, has reported that on November 27, Nagavkin's ten-day detention in the dungeon cell was to end.

"There was no reaction from anyone we contacted to any of Igor's complaints or to my statement ... There's absolutely no reaction to his hunger strike," said one of Nagavkin's comrades.

Sergey Ivaschenko, a lawyer, has explained that a change in the type of correctional facility is possible for prisoners, both towards improving their custody conditions and in towards worsening thereof. This depends on their behaviour and attitude to work in the colony.

"In Nagavkin's case, we see that colony bosses ... would not openly acknowledge the truthfulness of Igor's arguments stated in his complaints. Nagavkin cannot work in the colony, since he has been assigned the bed regime. And now he must be under daily medical supervision, since he is continuing his hunger strike," Sergey Ivaschenko has explained.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.