MADE TO WATCH EIGHT HOURS OF PROPAGANDA DAILY IN JAIL: NAVALNY

WASHINGTON: Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has given his first interview from prison, comparing it to a Chinese labour camp and saying he is forced to watch eight hours of state television a day.

Navalny, who built his political career on exposing corruption in Russia, is being held in a maximum security prison colony in Pokrov, 100 km east of Moscow. He told The New York Times the days of heavy labour in Soviet gulags were over -- replaced by what he called the “psychological violence” of brainwashing and propaganda.

“You might imagine tattooed muscle men with steel teeth carrying on with knife fights to take the best cot by the window,” Navalny was quoted as saying in the interview, published Wednesday.

“You need to imagine something like a Chinese labour camp, where everybody marches in a line and where video cameras are hung everywhere. There is constant control and a culture of snitching.” He said guards monitored them as they watched hours of state propaganda, not allowing them to read or write and waking inmates up if they fell asleep.

But Navalny remained upbeat about the future of the regime of Vladimir Putin, insisting that one day it would end. “Sooner or later, this mistake will be fixed, and Russia will move on to a democratic, European path of development. Simply because that is what the people want,” he said. He also repeated criticisms of the US and European governments for sanctions on Russia, which he said harm Russian people rather than those in power. He said he has not been assaulted by any fellow prisoners.

Navalny has not been silent since his jailing in March, releasing a letter from prison and also managing several social media posts, but the interview with the Times was the first since his imprisonment.