Political Quotes

“an article in the February 29 New York Times, entitled ``5 Convicts Familiar With Navalny's Prison Confirm Hellish Conditions,'' describes the horrifyingly cruel treatment of political prisoners in Russia. Anyone who reads the article could easily mistakenly assume that they were reading about the shocking ways that prisoners were dehumanized, brutalized, starved, and murdered in the Middle Ages, except this is 2024. What the article describes is not new, but it has received renewed attention since the murder, on February 16, of Aleksei Navalny, who bravely challenged Putin's corrupt and ruthless crusade to destroy any semblance of democracy and freedom in Russia today. I want to quote a few passages from the article for the benefit of those who have not read it: Locked in an Arctic prison, Aleksei A. Navalny is likely to have spent his final days in some of the most inhumane conditions within Russia's extensive penitentiary system, according to five men who have served sentences in the same penal colony as the Russian opposition leader. The men described in phone interviews unbearable cold, repulsive food, unsanitary conditions, and beatings in Penal Colony No. 3 of the remote Yamalo-Nenets region, where Mr. Navalny arrived in December to serve out the remainder of his 19-year prison sentence. The former inmates said the conditions were especially brutal in the solitary cells where Mr.…”