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“The doctor did not allow Alexei, but he sent a propagandist (Mary) Butina with a video camera. It seems that soon an unforgettable report awaits us about the wonderful employees of the colony and about the terrible Navalna, which requires medicine ”, writes K. Jarmiš.
Navaln’s account says that Butina “screamed that it was the best and most comfortable prison.”
“Navalnas preached to her for 15 minutes in front of other prisoners, freeing her from being a parasite and a thief in the government,” say opposition supporters.
Navaln announced Wednesday that he was going on a hunger strike, demanding that he be allowed to see a doctor.
Navaln says he suffers from severe back pain in prison and has lost feeling in his legs, but is only receiving pain relievers.
His allies say the declared hunger strike is not an empty threat. They said they did not believe the opposition would give up the campaign.
“Naval has always taken things like the hunger strike very seriously,” opposition spokesman Ruslan Shavedinov told AFP.
“We are very concerned about his condition, so we demand that the doctors see him immediately,” he said.
Navaln has yet to fully recover from an attempt to poison him last August, when he felt ill and passed out on a plane flying from Siberia to Moscow. The plane was forced to land in Omsk.
He was treated by local doctors for a few days and then he was transferred to Berlin for treatment.
Recovers from poisoning
Western experts have discovered that Navaln was poisoned with the nerve paralyzing substance Novičiok, developed in the Soviet Union, although Russian authorities have repeatedly denied any involvement in the poisoning.
For many months, A. Navaln was treated in Germany, underwent physiotherapy procedures, and had to learn to walk or lift a glass of water again.
VIDEO: What does A. Navalna say about Russian schools and why does he support the annexation of Crimea?
As usual, Navaln initially poked fun at his ailments, but spoke seriously Wednesday.
“I have the right to see a doctor and get medicine … Seriously, it really doesn’t give me peace of mind,” he said.
At that time, the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) says that “he was provided with the necessary medical attention given his current state of health.”
According to R. Shavedinov, it was not easy for A. Navalns to make the decision to go on a hunger strike.
“After poisoning, nobody knows how the body can react to such a situation, and it is very worrying,” he said.
Navaln’s comrades declined to provide more information on how their hunger strike would be carried out, but opposition allies already had experience of such a strike.
In the summer of 2019, Liubov Sobol, a lawyer with the Anticorruption Foundation (FBK) established by A. Navaln, drank only liquids for 32 days when she and other opposition politicians were banned from participating in local elections.
In 2015, Leonid Volkov, considered Navalno’s right-hand man, and a group of activists declared a hunger strike in Novosibirsk, when they were also not allowed to stand in local elections.
The campaign ended 12 days after one of its participants, Sergei Boyko, was hospitalized.
Force feeding
Oleh Sencov, a Ukrainian filmmaker and critical of Russia’s annexation of his native Crimea in 2014, is the best-known prisoner to go on a hunger strike in Russia for political reasons.
In 2015, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Russia for drafting a terrorist attack in annexed Crimea. In 2018, he went on a hunger strike, demanding the release of all political prisoners held in Russia from Ukraine.
After 145 days, he stopped the strike to avoid force-feeding. Throughout the hunger strike, the prison doctors supported the life of O. Sencov.
O.Sencov, who was released from prison during a prisoner exchange in 2019, lost 20 kg of body weight while starving.
Navaln’s allies, for their part, said Thursday that the opposition had already lost eight kilograms before the hunger strike. His Facebook message says that A. Navalnas, who is 189 cm tall, weighed 93 kilograms before reaching the colony.
“Now he weighs 85. That is eight kilograms less before the hunger strike,” said his colleagues.
Russian law requires prisoners to be force-fed if they voluntarily refuse to eat.
Although the law does not specify how this should be done, human rights activists report cases where prisoners are fed a “nutrient mix” orally, rectally or through the gut.
Navaln “is well aware that the hunger strike is a desperate move,” his fellow economist Sergeh Guriev wrote on Twitter.
“Since he started starving, that means he thinks he has nothing to lose, that the situation is unbearable,” he added.
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