MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, who is serving a jail sentence on financial misconduct charges in prison outside Moscow, announced on Friday that he was ending his three-week hunger strike.
Navalny went on hunger strike on March 31 after being denied a visit by a doctor of his choice. The 44-year-old has been diagnosed with two spinal hernias but has refused the treatment offered by the prison authority. On Monday, Navalny was transferred to a prison hospital, where he was given intravenous glucose infusion. Three days later, the Alliance of Doctors trade union (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) said that Navalny was taken to a public hospital in the city of Vladimir on April 20. The doctors also called on Navalny to end the hunger strike.
"I am not withdrawing the requirement to be visited by a doctor � I have a loss of sensation in parts of my limbs, and I want to understand what it is and how to treat it � but taking into account the progress [of the disease] and all the circumstances, I am starting to end the hunger strike. According to the rules, it will take 24 days, and they say it is even harder," Navalny's Instagram post read.
The jailed blogger added that he had been twice examined by "civilian doctors," who were also running medical tests, the results of which were given to Navalny himself.
On Wednesday, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova said that four independent doctors had visited Navalny, having reported no serious health concerns.
In January, Navalny returned to Moscow from Berlin after receiving medical treatment for his alleged poisoning. The blogger was arrested on arrival and referred to a court, which in early February rescinded his suspended sentence in the 2014 Yves Rocher fraud case over multiple probation breaches, and replaced it with a 3.5-year term behind bars. A Moscow city court reinstated the ruling but reduced the sentence to 2.5 years.
