Navalny's health worsens in penal colony, lawyers denied visit
Alexei Navalny’s health condition is alarming, said the lawyers of the Russian oppositionist and Kremlin critic who is currently serving a sentence in prison.
The authorities say that Navalny’s condition is satisfactory, however, his lawyers have not yet been granted permission to see him.
The medical staff of the Russian penal colony in the city of Pokrova, where Alexei Navalny is currently held, have, too, assessed his health as satisfactory.
Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, reported that the press service of the Penitentiary Administration for the Vladimir Region said that convict Navalny had undergone a medical examination and “his health condition had been assessed as stable and satisfactory”.
On February 2, the Russian court replaced Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real one and sentenced him to two years and eight months in prison.
Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on her Twitter page that she does not trust the statements of the prison administration.
“What a bunch of liars. Yesterday, lawyers were not allowed to see Navalny, because of some “security measures”. Now we know that he is in the hospital. Today they said that his condition is “stable, satisfactory” – and what’s truly scary is what they really mean by that”.
Какие все-таки лживые твари. Вчера не пускали адвокатов к Навальному, говоря, что у них "режимные мероприятия". Теперь мы понимаем, что он в больнице. Сегодня говорят, что его состояние "стабильное, удовлетворительное" – и реально страшно, что это значит на самом деле
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) March 25, 2021
Navalny’s ally, Georgy Alburov recalls that when Navalny’s health worsened while he was serving a sentence back in 2019, the prison administration also lied about his “satisfactory” condition.
Когда в прошлый раз мы слышали от российского государства "состояние Навального удовлетворительное" (лето 2019, отравление в спецприемнике), то он выглядел так pic.twitter.com/YDX7zaUPmi
— Георгий Албуров (@alburov) March 25, 2021
On March 24, Navalny’s lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev said that Navalny complained of severe back pain. “His leg was numb, he could not step on it and all he got was two pills of Ibuprofen”, said the lawyers whom the prison administration did not allow in to see Navalny.
The head of Navalny’s regional headquarters, Leonid Volkov, suggested that the lawyers were not allowed to see Navalny because he is now being held in the prison hospital.
Earlier today, lawyers of the Kremlin critic arrived in the Vladimir region and will now keep trying to obtain a permission to visit him.
The free.navalny.com website continues to gather more participants in a large-scale rally demanding Navalny’s release. More than 220,000 people have already signed up with the website, and the project aims to gather half a million participants.
Meanwhile, it became known that Canada has imposed sanctions against the head of the Federal Security Service and eight other Russian officials in connection with the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, to which the Russian Foreign Ministry promised a “mirror response”.