Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny went on starvation strike on Wednesday in an try to power the jail holding him outdoors Moscow to offer him with correct medical care for what he mentioned was acute ache in his again and legs.
The destiny of Navalny, one in all President Vladimir Putin’s most distinguished critics, is in focus after he mentioned final week that being woken up by a guard each hour in the course of the evening amounted to torture and that his appeals for medical therapy had been ignored.
In a handwritten letter addressed to the governor of his jail which was posted to social media by his staff on Wednesday, Navalny mentioned day by day requests for a physician of his selection to look at him and for correct drugs had been ignored.
“I really need a doctor. Every convict has the right (by law) to invite a specialist to examine and consult him. Even I have such a right and I’m innocent,” Navalny wrote in the letter.
“I demand that a doctor be allowed to see me, and until this happens, I am declaring a hunger strike.”
Prison authorities, after analyzing Navalny final week, declared his situation to be secure and passable. The Kremlin has declined to touch upon his well being, saying it’s a matter for the federal penitentiary service.
On Wednesday, the penitentiary service mentioned Navalny was receiving all needed therapy.
“The convict A. Navalny is provided with all the necessary medical aid in accordance with his current medical conditions,” Interfax information company cited the federal penitentiary service of the Vladimir area as saying in a press release.
It additionally mentioned that common checks of prisoners in the course of the evening had been carried out in line with the regulation and “do not hinder the rest of the convicts”.
POSSIBLE ‘SEVERE CONSEQUENCES’
Medical professionals on Sunday printed an open letter demanding the 44-year-old politician get correct care.
“We fear for the worst. Leaving a patient in this condition … may lead to severe consequences, including an irreversible, full or partial loss of lower limb functions,” the letter mentioned.
Navalny has mentioned that what began out as acute again ache unfold to his proper leg after which to his left leg. The solely drugs he has acquired has been Ibuprofen tablets and cream, he has mentioned. Some members of an area prisoner monitoring group have accused him of faking his situation.
“I don’t want to lose both legs,” Navalny wrote in the identical letter. “It would not be fair. Everyone has two legs and I wouldn’t have any.”
Navalny was jailed final month for two and a half years for parole violations that he known as politically motivated. He was arrested as he returned to Russia from Germany in January, the place he had been recovering from what medical doctors mentioned was a nerve agent poisoning.
The West, together with the European Court of Human Rights, has demanded Russia launch Navalny. Moscow, which has solid doubt over his poisoning, has known as such appeals unacceptable interference in its inner affairs.
Asked concerning the starvation strike, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price mentioned the United States continued to name on Russia to finish Navalny’s “politically motivated” detention.
The Kremlin has solid Navalny as a Western-backed troublemaker on a mission to destabilise Russia with Putin’s spokesman linking him to the CIA, one thing Navalny has denied.
Navalny’s allies have introduced plans to stage what they hope would be the largest anti-Kremlin avenue protest in trendy Russian historical past this spring. The authorities have mentioned such protests are unlawful.
