Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, who went on hunger strike last week to complain about ill-treatment in prison, said on Monday he had a fever and a strong cough, but continued his strike anyway.
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Main opponent of the Kremlin, the 44-year-old anti-corruption activist announced on March 31 that he had stopped eating to protest his conditions of detention, accusing the prison administration of denying him access to a doctor and medicine and “torture” him with sleep deprivation.
Detained in the Pokrov penal colony, 100 km east of Moscow and known as one of the toughest in Russia, he complains of severe back pain and loss of sensitivity in his legs.
“I am quoting the official data from the temperature taken today: a strong cough, 38.1 ° C temperature,” wrote Mr. Navalny on his Instagram account.
But “I am continuing the hunger strike, of course,” he added.
According to Alexeï Navalny, an inmate from his barracks was hospitalized on Monday for tuberculosis, the third case of this kind in a few weeks out of 15 prisoners.
“This is our ‘perfect, exemplary colony’. Each prisoner prays to God not to end up here, because inside, it is unhealthy, tuberculosis and a lack of medicine, ”writes Mr. Navalny.
“I am surprised that there is not the Ebola virus here”, he then quips.
Several pro-Kremlin Russian media, including the Russian state television channel RT, responded on Friday to recent accusations by Alexei Navalny of mistreatment in prison by presenting his camp as an “exemplary” penal colony.
“There is not a single word of truth,” retorted Mr. Navalny on Monday.
Alexeï Navalny, who survived last year of poisoning, was sentenced in February to two and a half years in prison for fraud in a case dating back to 2014, which he denounces as politically motivated.