Human rights organization Amnesty International said on Wednesday that Alexey Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is being kept in deplorable conditions that could be torturing him.
Navalny, who was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent last year, was now being subjected to sleep deprivation and didn’t have access to a doctor he trusted in prison, according to the study.
“Russia, the Russian authorities, may be placing him into a situation of a slow death and seeking to hide what is happening to him,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said ahead of the publication of the group’s annual report.
“Clearly the Russian authorities are violating his rights. We have to do more,” she said. “[They] have already attempted to kill him, they are now detaining him, and imposing prison conditions, that amount to torture.”
Navalny went on a hunger strike last week in an effort to get the prison outside of Moscow where he is being held to provide him with adequate medical treatment for what he claims is acute back and leg pain.
Source: ALJAZEERA
