Opponent Kara-Murza transferred to high security prison in Siberia

NIn a message shared on the social network Facebook, lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said that Vladimir Kara-Murza arrived on Thursday at a maximum security penal colony in Omsk, Siberia, Russia.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, was in a detention center in Moscow, awaiting an appeal against a conviction last April for treason, following speeches against the war in Ukraine.

According to the lawyer, Kara-Murza was immediately placed in a “punishment scene”, a small concrete room where the detainees are completely isolated.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has been jailed for more than a year, was close to Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015.

The opponent survived poisonings in 2015 and 2017, which he attributed to the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied any responsibility.

Considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, Kara-Murza was honored with the 2022 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, awarded by the Council of Europe.

Russia adopted a law criminalizing the dissemination of “false information” about its military shortly after sending troops to Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Authorities are using the law to stamp out criticism of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Read Also: Kara-Mourza is already in a prison in Siberia to serve a 25-year sentence