Russia's highest court quashes Navalny's lawsuit over depriving him of pen and paper in prison

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny contesting prison regulations that allow prison officials to deprive him of stationery and pens.

Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court in a maximum security penal colony in Melekhovo 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow. This week, another trial against the Kremlin's archfoe began right there in the penal colony on charges of extremism. If convicted, Navalny will remain behind bars for at least two more decades.

In the lawsuit considered by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Navalny complained that prison officials in the restricted housing unit, where he is held in isolation, no longer gave him a pen and paper.

“Some are being given a pen and paper for an hour. In some places, for 15 minutes, and a convict needs a week to finish a letter. In my case, the time for writing materials was removed from my schedule entirely. How come? The prison chief decided so, that's how,” Navalny wrote in a typically sardonic social media post on the eve of the hearing.