Watchdog

Prison authorities have refused to transfer Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny from punitive confinement to the penal colony's infirmary to get treatment for flu symptoms, according to social media posts on January 11 by people close to the opposition politician.

According to the posts, the prison administration explained its refusal by referring to a flu outbreak in the penitentiary, saying that Navalny may get the flu if placed in the overcrowded rooms in the infirmary.

Navalny and his lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, have said for several days that Navalny has a heavy cough and a fever. Kobzev said on January 10 that the prison guards had refused to pass on medicine to his client.

Navalny said last week that he was placed in solitary confinement for the 10th time since August.

According to Navalny, the guards added a person to his cell but then kept him separate for one day. The person was returned to his cell with flu symptoms, and Navalny then started feeling sick.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, wrote on Instagram on January 11 that her husband is not allowed to lie on a bed in the punitive cell, which makes his situation even worse.

"Are you humans at all? What is happening in your heads? How do you live, enjoying intentionally infecting a person and depriving him of treatment and medicine?" Navalnaya wrote, addressing the penal colony’s guards.

On January 10, a group of Russian physicians urged President Vladimir Putin "to stop torturing Navalny" in prison and allow doctors from medical institutions outside the prison to examine him and transfer him to a regular hospital for treatment if need be.

The outspoken Putin critic is serving two sentences for violating parole and embezzlement at Penal Colony No. 6 in the region of Vladimir, about 260 kilometers east of Moscow.

Iran's Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence of former Defense Ministry official Alireza Akbari, a dual Iranian-British citizen, on spying charges and transferred him to solitary confinement, raising fears his execution may be imminent.

The Intelligence Ministry said on January 11 Akbari was sentenced for spying, calling him "one of the most important infiltrators" of classified materials in the country. He has denied the allegations.

Akbari's wife confirmed she had been informed of the sentence, and in an interview with BBC's Persian service, said her husband, who has been in prison since 2019, had been taken to solitary confinement and asked her to come to the prison for a "final meeting."

The BBC also said it had obtained an audio message from Akbari saying he had been tortured and forced to confess under duress on video.

A U.K. Foreign Office spokesperson said the British government's "priority" was to secure Akbari's "immediate release" and that it had again requested "urgent consular access."

"Iran must halt the execution of British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari and immediately release him," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a tweet.

"This is a politically motivated act by a barbaric regime that has total disregard for human life," he added.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization says the number of executions in Iran exceeded 500 last year.

On January 10, the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, accused Tehran of "weaponizing" the death penalty to quell dissent amid months of unrest over the death of a young woman while in police custody for an alleged violation of the country's head scarf law.

Four protesters have been executed in Iran since the unrest began in mid-September and several more are currently in prison having been handed death sentences.

With reporting by Reuters and BBC Persian