The Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny announced on Wednesday that he will begin a hunger strike to demand access to an independent doctor as his health has declined dramatically since he was transferred in late February to a penal colony east of Moscow notorious for its harsh conditions.
In a post on his Instagram page, Navalny explained his decision, saying that he had a right to see a doctor and receive proper medication. “Instead of medical assistance, I am tortured with sleep deprivation,” he wrote, adding that he is woken up eight times every night. Navalny’s allies sounded the alarm about his health last week, stating that the Kremlin foe was suffering from severe back pain and that numbness in one of his legs had affected his ability to walk.
“Under the circumstances known to us, such a sharp deterioration in his health can’t not be cause for extreme concern,” his lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev wrote in a statement published by Navalny ally Leonid Volkov.
Prison doctors have provided Navalny with ibuprofen and topical pain relievers, but he has been denied access to doctors from outside the penitentiary system, raising concerns that he won’t receive proper treatment. Some 500 Russian doctors and medical professionals have signed an online petition demanding that an independent doctor be allowed in to see him.
A longtime Kremlin critic known for exposing high-level corruption, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow last August, and toxicology tests later revealed that he had been poisoned with a potentially lethal Novichok-type nerve agent. An investigation by Bellingcat and the Insider pointed the finger at Russian security services, which had trailed Navalny for years, including on his trip to Siberia.
After returning to Russia early this year, Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport before being sentenced in February to spend more than two years in a penal colony for violating the terms of his parole for a previous charge widely thought to be politically motivated. His arrest in January sparked street protests in towns and cities across the country, coming as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings have slumped to a historic low.
It’s unclear what has caused such a rapid deterioration in Navalny’s health. According to his lawyers, he had an MRI last week, but the results have not been returned. In a post on his Instagram on Friday, Navalny speculated that the pain may be the result of a pinched nerve from sitting in police vans and so-called “pencil cases,” the deceptively wholesome term used to describe the small cages used to contain defendants during Russian court hearings.
In a statement on Thursday, the Russian federal penitentiary service said Navalny had been examined the previous day and that his health was “stable and satisfactory.”
In his Instagram post on Friday, Navalny said he had been warned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch who was imprisoned for a decade after he began supporting opposition groups, not to get ill in prison. Navalny said a person in his cell had an inflamed appendix and, after writhing in pain for two days, was only taken to the hospital when he “turned green and began to lose consciousness,” he said.
In 2018, human rights experts at the United Nations urged Russian officials to prosecute widespread allegations of torture and deaths in the country’s prisons.
One of the most high-profile deaths in Russian custody was that of Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who was hired to investigate an alleged $230 million tax fraud by Russian officials. Magnitsky was subsequently arrested and died after 11 months in police custody after developing pancreatitis and being denied medical care. The United States, Canada, Britain, and the European Union have all passed legislation named after him that imposes sanctions on corrupt officials and human rights abusers in Russia and around the world.
“You should fear nothing except your own fear.”
These haunting words from Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny accompany the recent eponymous NFT artwork that sold for 7.49 Ether (currently equivalent to $12,494.44 USD). This digital art piece initially features a close-up shot of the activist facing away from the viewer reaching out with an extended victory sign towards a large, looming bust of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalny stands on a stack of books and filing cabinets, his left hand in handcuffs, still clutching the scales of justice.
Alexei Navalny’s return to Moscow on 17 January is a pivotal moment in the modern Russian history. His decision to go back to his home country after five months recuperating in Berlin was an act of extraordinary bravery, one with few parallels in modern times.
He knew that he faced almost certain imprisonment, and possibly death. The only uncertainty is how long he will be held in prison – one month, one year, 10 years?
In a 2017 interview, YouTuber Yurii Dud asked Navalny which political figure he most admired. Without hesitation, he replied “Jesus Christ,” citing his role in bringing about a revolution in social values. Navalny himself is not a religious person – but he does see himself as the savior of Russia, and thus Putin’s rival.
When Dud pressed him to name a more conventional politician, “one who wears a suit,” Navalny chose Nelson Mandela, who surfaced from 27 years in prison with the moral authority to lead his nation into a new era. Navalny himself has been jailed a dozen times for short periods after being arrested at protests. In 2014 he was given a suspended sentence of three years in a patently false fraud case: that is the excuse for his current incarceration. His family’s bank accounts have also been blocked.
Outrage at Navalny’s arrest led to protests in more than 70 Russian cities on 23 January. Over 3,000 people were arrested, and several of Navalny’s key aides were detained in the days leading up to the unsanctioned protests. A week before that approximately 100,000 protesters from 196 cities nationwide poured into the streets in anti-Putin protests.
The cost of repression matters in the case of Navalny. As an investigative lawyer and journalist, Navalny has successfully built a platform for disseminating private information. This democratization of information that makes him threatening to an incumbent is exacerbated by Navalny’s extreme popularity, both at home and abroad. (In January Meghan McCain, daughter of late US Senator John McCain and co-host of talk show The View, posted a photo of herself in a Navalny t-shirt with the caption “FREE NAVALNY.”)
So, NSG, my question is: given the variety of methods the regime has previously employed to silence or neutralize Navalny, which of the strategies should the West and Russia dissidents adopt this time? Indeed, the international community is demonstrably interested in Alexei Navalny’s fate. In September 2020, both the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and NATO produced statements likening Russia’s use of Novichok to directing a chemical weapon at a citizen. On January 21, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of adopting a resolution to promote sanctions against Russia and Russian individuals involved in Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment. The G7 intergovernmental organization published a statement condemning the arrest, detention, and poisoning of the opposition figure, while US President Biden discussed Navalny’s poisoning with Putin by telephone.
This support from the international community is especially relevant because research shows that political opposition leaders with robust foreign prominence are less likely, on average, to encounter repression, and more likely to be freed in the end (instead of just “disappeared”). Foreign leaders, international organizations, and transnational activist networks can safeguard a political opposition figure like Navalny from repression by enacting economic, military, and/or diplomatic sanctions in anticipation of, or in response to, violations of their civil rights.
