US urged Russia to allow independent doctors to examine Alexei Navalny “immediately”

Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, on hunger strike for three weeks, is “very weak” and “receives” no medical assistance, According to his lawyer, who was able to visit him on Tuesday in prison and asked him to transferred to a civilian hospital in Moscow.

“He is very weak, he can hardly sit or speak”, told reporters Olga Mijailova, explaining that “Not getting medical help” appropriate in the prison hospital and demanded his transfer.

Soon after, the United States government – through State Department spokesman Ned Price – echoed the request. and urged Moscow to “immediately” allow independent doctors to examine opposition leader. “We ask you to allow him to have immediate access to necessary and independent medical care,” Price told reporters on Tuesday.

A team of medics have been trying to see the 44-year-old politician since the start of the month., after the president’s most prominent opponent Vladimir Poutine will launch a hunger strike on March 31 to demand a appropriate medical treatment for a number of ailments.

However, Russian prison authorities again denied them access to the prison on Tuesday despite growing concerns about the poor health of the Russian opponent.

Almost three weeks after the hunger strike, her doctors warned over the weekend that Navalny’s health was deteriorating so rapidly that he could die in “any minute”, while US threatened Russia with “consequences” in the event of death.

The Russian Prison Service, which has repeatedly prevented Navalny’s doctors from visiting him, said on Monday that he had been transferred from his penal colony in the Vladimir region about 100 kilometers east of Moscow to a medical center in another colony in the same region.

A team of doctors, including Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, went to the new settlement on Tuesday morning and was again prevented from seeing him. However, she was told to try it later in the day.

“It is very disrespectful to the people who have come to fulfill their human duty, a medical duty to help a patient”, Vasilyeva told the AFP outside the colony.

“We are only talking about health and life”

Navalny is serving a two and a half year sentence for violation of probation conditions on old fraud charges who he says are politically motivated.

His lawyers and allies are demanding that he be transferred to a regular hospital, but the Kremlin has said Navalny is not entitled to special treatment.

Concern has grown in the West in recent days about his condition.

Increased pressure

Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia in January from Germany, where he had spent months recovering from a nerve poisoning attack Novichok. He attributes the attack to Putin, a claim the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

European Union and United States have imposed sanctions on Russia for poisoning and on Monday they threatened Moscow with further sanctions in the event of Navalny’s death.

Navalny went on a hunger strike to demand appropriate medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his limbs.

His team over the weekend said that a blood test showed high potassium levels and high creatinine, indicating that Navalny may be suffering from kidney failure and risk of cardiac arrest.

The Russian prison service insisted that his condition was “satisfactory”, although he was transferred to the medical center, and said he was taking vitamin supplements as part of his treatment.

Navalny’s team called on supporters to take to the streets of the country on Wednesday, when Putin is due to deliver his annual State of the Nation address, to protest the way they are treating him

Allies of anti-corruption activists, who are regularly searched and arrested by police for their activism, face increasing pressure from authorities ahead of protests.

The Navalny team said on Twitter on Tuesday that police were searching their offices in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk and had detained his coordinator in the town of Kurgan in the Urals.

(With information from AFP)

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