Navalny cracks jokes in first court appearance since transfer to penal colony

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny joined a court hearing via video link Wednesday, marking his first on-camera appearance since his transfer last month to the remote, high-security penal colony in the Arctic, where he is serving a 19-year sentence for several alleged “extremist” crimes.

Navalny appeared to be in good spirits, cracking jokes about the freezing weather and asking whether his old prison, Penal Colony No. 6 (IK-6) in the Vladimir region, had a party when he left. He appeared on camera in the courtroom wearing black prison garb. The Russian independent news site Mediazona published a semicomplete transcript of the hearing and released photos of Navalny, as he appeared on video, with a big smile across his face.

Navalny threw his hands up at the start of the hearing when seeing the judge, Kirill Nikiforov, whom Navalny has known for a long time, Mediazona reported.

“Your Honor, well, a tear, a tear is flowing down my cheek — I’m so glad to see you all. My dear Kovrov court, my dear defendants, my dear defenders and my dear secretary — I am very glad to see you,” Navalny said.

Navalny joked about the harsh conditions in his new high-security prison in the far-north region of Russia, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow, The Associated Press reported.

“Conditions here [at the penal colony in Kharp] — and that’s a dig at you, esteemed defendants — are better than at IK-6 in Vladimir,” Navalny said, according to the AP.

“There is one problem, though — and I don’t know which court to file a suit about it — the weather is bad here,” Navalny added, with a chuckle, the AP reported.

At one point, Navalny asked the court whether they threw a party when he was taken away from IK-6, where he was held until last month. The IK-6 representative asked the court to withdraw the question, and Navalny rephrased, asking whether it was just a party or a karaoke party.

The judge laughed, Mediazone reported, and said, “It’s being removed. It’s being removed.”  

At another point, Navalny asked whether there had been a naked party, invoking a recent incident involving Russian blogger and TV presenter Nastya Ivleeva.

The hearing on Wednesday was for one of the several lawsuits Navalny has filed against IK-6, specifically challenging his treatment in his old prison. The court played a video of an incident in which Navalny challenged a prison official, who Navalny claimed wrongfully took away his pen. After the official accused Navalny of insulting him, Navalny was punished for 12 days, he said.

Navalny conceded he should not have called the prison official insulting names but still maintained the punishment was illegal. The judge ultimately ruled against Navalny, denying his claim that the activity was illegal.

“One inspector decided to show off, and for some reason, when receiving a mattress in the evening,” Navalny said, recounting the incident, “so imposingly, defiantly, he entered my cell and took my pen.”

“I warned him about illegal behavior, but after he continued to walk around and act like he was the big boss, I made a point—no profanity—to tell him what I thought about it,” he added.

“Okay, I shouldn’t have called the inspector a devil or, in prison terms, a devil. OK, I admit, I went overboard here — no one should be called that. But under the circumstances, except for the fact that I called the person, 12 days in a punishment cell is illegal,” Navalny said.

The next hearing was set for Feb. 2.