MOSCOW (Reuters) – Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been moved to an infirmary with symptoms of a respiratory disease and has been tested for the coronavirus, Izvestia newspaper reported Monday, after saying he had a fever and was coughing.
Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin who declared a hunger strike last week and accused prison staff of denying him proper treatment for acute back and leg pain, claimed there had been a tuberculosis outbreak in his ward before.
The 44-year-old politician whose release the West has demanded said three people from his ward had been hospitalized with tuberculosis and gloomily joked that contracting the disease could provide him with relief from his other ailments.
“If I have tuberculosis, maybe it will chase away the pain in my back and numbness in my legs. That would be nice, ”he wrote on Instagram.
He said prison authorities measured his temperature at 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit). He also said he had a bad cough.
Hours later, Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin newspaper, quoted a statement from the federal prison service saying he had been taken to an infirmary and had several tests, including for the coronavirus.
The Izvestia report did not say where the infirmary was, but one of his lawyers said it appeared to be in the IK-2 corrective penal colony 100 km (60 miles) east of Moscow where he was being held, the TV Rain outlet reported. . .
Navalny has accused prison authorities of denying him sleep by waking him up every hour at night and refusing to provide him with proper medical care.
Prison authorities deny lack of sleep and have previously said that Navalny’s condition was satisfactory and that he has received all necessary treatment. The prison that held him did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
His allies said late last week that they would hold a rolling protest outside his prison starting Tuesday unless he was examined by a doctor of his choice and given what they consider good medicine.
Navalny’s lawyers have regularly visited him in custody and have helped him continue posting on social media.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said she had appealed to Putin over Navalny’s “arbitrary arrest and deteriorating health”.
“There is a real prospect that #Russia will subject him to a slow death. He should have immediate access to a doctor he trusts and he should be released, ”she wrote on Twitter.
State media and some members of a prison security group have accused Navalny of faking his medical problems in order to keep himself in the public eye, which Navalny and his allies deny.
Additional reporting by Vladmir Soldatkin and Polina Nikolskaya; Editing by Timothy Heritage