“He weighs 77 kg,” Alexei Navalny’s official Twitter account announced on Monday, claiming that the Russian opponent, currently in prison, has lost eight kilograms since the start of his hunger strike on March 31. “The prison administration threatens him daily to force-feed him,” he continues.
Oral, rectal or intubation
Force-feeding a prisoner in Russia is allowed by law and can be done orally, rectally or by intubation. Such treatment is viewed by human rights activists as a form of torture.
Alexeï Navalny, imprisoned for two and a half years because of a dark case of fraud widely seen as a pretext to imprison him despite denials by the Kremlin, stopped eating to denounce the conditions of his detention in the prison colony of Pokrov, about a hundred kilometers from Moscow.
He accuses the authorities of denying him adequate medical treatment for back problems that make him suffer and interfere with the functioning of his hands and legs. According to his lawyers, he has a double herniated disc.
In addition, the opponent says he is “tortured” by sleep deprivation, his jailers waking him up every hour during the night.
The Russian authorities, for their part, dismissed all of Mr Navalny’s accusations, believing that he was receiving all the medical attention he needed.
Poisoned by a nerve agent
The most notorious Kremlin critic survived poisoning with a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military last summer. The opponent accuses President Vladimir Putin and his intelligence services (FSB) of having wanted to eliminate him, which the Russian authorities deny, refusing even so far to investigate the assassination attempt.
On his return from Russia, after five months of convalescence in Germany, he was arrested on his arrival at Moscow airport, then quickly tried and sent to prison for violating a judicial review in a previous case.
Mr. Navalny specializes in corruption investigations targeting Mr. Putin and his entourage. He has millions of subscribers on social networks.
–
