Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny threatens to sue prison for not giving him Quran
Moscow: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has alleged that the jail authorities where he is jailed are withholding the Quran which he intended to study while serving his sentence. In an Instagram post, Navalny has threatened to sue the prison in this regard.
“The thing is they’re not giving my Quran.” He said in an Instagram post announcing his first lawsuit against the prison officials.
In the post, Navalny added that deeply studying the Quran was one of the several self-improvement goals he had set for himself while in prison.
The claim comes as Navalny, a Christian, remains on a hunger strike in protest against an alleged refusal by authorities to allow his physician to examine him behind bars after he developed severe back and leg pain.
He came under fire early in his political career for making nationalistic comments and deriding immigrants in Russia from predominantly Muslim countries in Central Asia.
The Kremlin critic said he has not been given access to any of the books he brought or ordered over the past month because they all need to be “inspected for extremism”, which officials say takes three months.
“Books are our everything, and if I have to sue for my right to read, then I’ll be suing,” he said.
A court-ordered Navalny in February to serve two and a half years in prison for violating the terms of his probation, including when he was convalescing in Germany, from a 2014 embezzlement conviction.
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Osman Hadi murder: Prime accused denies role, claims he was in Dubai
Dubai: The murder case of Bangladeshi student leader Sharif Osman Hadi has taken a new turn after the prime accused, Faisal Karim Masud, publicly denied any involvement in the killing, asserting that he was in Dubai at the time, contradicting earlier claims by Bangladesh police that he had fled to India.
In a video message that has gone viral on social media, the authenticity of which has not been independently verified, Masud rejected the allegations against him and described the case as a fabricated conspiracy. He claimed that a radical political group was responsible for the attack on Hadi and said he had been falsely implicated.
“I am Faisal Karim Masud. I want to state clearly that I am not involved in the murder of Hadi in any way. This case is completely false and based on a fabricated conspiracy,” Masud said in the video. He added that he was forced to leave Bangladesh and travel to Dubai due to the allegations, despite holding a valid five-year multiple-entry visa for the UAE.
Masud acknowledged that he had visited Hadi’s office shortly before the shooting but maintained that their relationship was purely professional. Describing himself as a businessman who owns an IT firm and a former employee of the Ministry of Finance, Masud said he had approached Hadi regarding a job opportunity. According to him, Hadi sought an advance payment of 500,000 taka for arranging the job and also requested donations for various programmes, which he said he provided.
The accused further alleged that his family members were being harassed and falsely implicated in the case. “They have no involvement whatsoever. This kind of inhumane treatment of my family is unjust and unacceptable, and I strongly protest against it,” he said.
Masud also accused Jamaat-linked elements of orchestrating Hadi’s killing, claiming the student leader was targeted by “Jamaati elements” and that he and his younger brother were deliberately framed. A photograph purportedly showing Masud’s UAE visa has also circulated widely online.
Earlier, Bangladesh police had stated that Masud and another accused, Alamgir Sheikh, fled the country after the killing and entered India through the Meghalaya border. Media reports in Bangladesh claimed the two crossed over via the Haluaghat border in Mymensingh district and were currently in India. India, however, has firmly denied any connection between the accused and its territory, calling the allegations a false narrative being pushed by extremist elements.
Sharif Osman Hadi, a key figure in Bangladesh’s student uprising last year, was shot in the head by masked gunmen in Dhaka on December 12 and succumbed to his injuries six days later at a hospital in Singapore. He had emerged as a prominent leader during the student-led protests that culminated in the end of Sheikh Hasina’s rule.
