Jailed Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Launches Hunger Strike to Demand Medical Care
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced Wednesday that he is going on a hunger strike while in prison to demand medical care he says is being denied for severe back pain that has made it difficult to walk on his right leg.
“I have declared a hunger strike demanding that the law be followed and they allow the requested doctor to visit me,” Navalny wrote on Instagram, according to a translation from Bloomberg. “So I’m lying here hungry, but so far with both legs.”
The outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been serving a 2.5-year prison sentence term since early February when a court determined he had violated his terms of parole for a 2014 fraud conviction that the European Court of Human Rights has deemed politically motivated. The Moscow court found that Navalny failed to report to the parole service between August until January 2021 — a period in which Navalny was receiving medical care in Germany for a poison attack that left him temporarily in a coma.
Navalny said he has had acute back pain for several weeks that has rendered him unable to walk on his right leg and that numbness has spread to the left side as well. Last week, he expressed concerns about potentially needing an amputation for his right leg, saying he “wouldn’t want to part with it.”
“Every convict has the right to invite a specialist for a check and consultation,” he wrote in a handwritten letter to the prison chief, an image of which he posted to Instagram. “So I demand to let a doctor see me and declare a hunger strike until it happens.”
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said last week that Navalny has had medical check-ups that determined his condition to be “stable and satisfactory.” However, Navalny said the medical care was insufficient, saying he was only given basic painkillers and ointment and would not accept the prescriptions from his doctor and kept him in the dark about his diagnosis.
“Why do prisoners go on hunger strikes? This question concerns only those who’ve never been a prisoner,” he said. “From the inside, everything is simple: you have no other means to fight, so you make the announcement.”
Navalny’s arrest and conviction have fueled protests and international rebuke, and allies have stated they plan to set a date for another demonstration once 500,000 people across Russia commit to participating. Since March 23, more than 350,000 people have registered to attend.
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