MOSCOW (AP) – Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Tuesday that he is suing his prison for withholding the Quran, which he planned to study while outside Moscow.
Navalny has been on a hunger strike for two weeks and is protesting the prison officials’ refusal to let his doctor examine him behind bars after he suffered severe back and leg pain. But he said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that his first lawsuit against prison officials was related to the Islamic holy book.
‘The point is they don’t give my Quran. And it pisses me off, ”Navalny said, adding that“ studying the Quran in depth ”was one of the many“ self-improvement ”goals he set himself in prison. The politician said he has not been able to access any of the books he has brought or ordered in the past month because they all need to be “inspected for extremism,” which officials say will take three months.
“So I wrote another petition to the (prison) chief and filed a lawsuit,” said Navalny. “Books are everything to us, and if I have to sue for my right to read, I’ll sue.”
Navalny, 44, is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent. He was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve infection he blames on the Kremlin. The Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
A court sentenced Navalny in February to serving 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation, including during his recovery in Germany, after an embezzlement in 2014. Navalny has dismissed the conviction as fabricated, and the European human rights court found it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”.
Authorities last month transferred Navalny from a Moscow prison to the IK-2 penal colony in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of the Russian capital. The facility in the city of Pokrov is known for its particularly strict inmate routines, including standing for hours.
Within weeks of his incarceration, Navalny said he was experiencing severe back and leg pain and was actually not getting any sleep because a security guard checks him every hour at night. He went on a hunger strike two weeks ago and demanded access to appropriate medication and a visit from his doctor. The Russian state prison claims that the politician is getting all the medical attention he needs.
Last week, Navalny was taken to the prison’s medical ward with a cough and fever. In an Instagram post, he said that three out of 15 people he is living with have tuberculosis, an infectious disease that spreads through the air.
On Monday, Navalny’s allies said on Twitter that he had been transferred back to general housing by the medical unit. The politician has lost eight kilos since the start of the hunger strike and a total of 15 kilos since his arrival in the colony, according to his team.
Prison officials “recognize the seriousness of the hunger strike” and threaten to force-feed him, Navalny’s team said in a tweet.
Navalny has been criticized over the years for using nationalist rhetoric regarding migrants, many of whom come to Russia from predominantly Muslim countries in Central Asia.
He said on Tuesday that he realized that his “development as a Christian requires a study of the Quran,” adding that he decided to become “the Quran champion among Russian non-Muslim politicians.”
Muslims in many parts of the world this week mark the start of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.