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Pokrov (dpa) - In protest against the lack of medical help, the Kremlin opponent Alexej Navalny, who was imprisoned in the penal camp, went on a hunger strike.
"I have declared the hunger strike with the demand to comply with the law and let the doctor who was invited to see me," said a statement published by the 44-year-old on Instagram.
Navalny says he suffers from severe back pain that radiates into his right leg and leads to paralysis there.
Doctors and his lawyers fear that he may lose his leg.
Navalny is detained in Pokrov, around 100 kilometers east of Moscow, in the Vladimir region.
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The Russian Alliance of Doctors - an independent trade union - had written an open letter to the penal system appealing for Navalny to be given medical help quickly.
The prison system is faced with allegations that the prominent opponent of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin is being tortured - by refusing treatment and also by being deprived of sleep.
"I'm hungry now, but I still have both legs," said Navalny.
He has the right to a doctor and medication, but he does not receive either one.
The hunger strike is the only means of struggle for him.
Even in his left leg he has already lost the feeling in places.
"Instead of medical help, I am tortured by sleep deprivation (they wake me eight times a night) ..." Fellow prisoners let him know that a prisoner's life in the camp is worth less than a "pack of cigarettes".
A Russian court sentenced Navalny, Russia's best-known opposition politician, to imprisonment in a prison camp in February.
The reason: During his stay in Germany, where he was recovering from an assassination attempt with the neurotoxin Novitschok, he is said to have violated reporting requirements to the Russian authorities in an earlier criminal case.
The EU and the USA criticize the approach as politically motivated.
They are demanding Navalny's release and have imposed sanctions on Russia, among other things, for the attack on the politician.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210331-99-45952 / 3