Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accused prison authorities of failing to provide proper treatment for his back pain and leg problems, saying in a letter posted Thursday that his physical condition has worsened in prison and he now has trouble walking.

Russia opposition leader Navalny's health worsens in Prison MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accused prison authorities of failing to provide proper treatment for his back pain and leg problems, saying in a letter posted Thursday that his physical condition has worsened in prison and he now has trouble walking. (1 of 3) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands in a cage in the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny's lawyer Mikhailova said Navalny was taken to a hospital outside prison on Wednesday, March 24 for magnetic resonance tomography but wasn't given the results. She said Navalny has received pills and ointment for his pain, but prison authorities refused to accept medicines that lawyers brought to him. (2 of 3) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands in a cage in the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow, Russia. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny described tight controls at his prison in a letter posted Monday March 15, 2021, saying they include hourly checks during the night. Navalny's note posted on his Instagram page confirmed for the first time that he arrived at a prison colony in Pokrov in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of Moscow, which stands out among Russian penitentiary facilities for its particularly strict regime. (3 of 3) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands in a cage in the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny's lawyer Mikhailova said Navalny was taken to a hospital outside prison on Wednesday, March 24 for magnetic resonance tomography but wasn't given the results. She said Navalny has received pills and ointment for his pain, but prison authorities refused to accept medicines that lawyers brought to him. March 25, 2021 Navalny blamed his health problems on prison officials failing to provide the right medicines and refusing to allow his doctor to visit him behind bars. He also complained in a second letter that the hourly checks a guard makes on him at night amounted to sleep deprivation torture. Copies of his letters to penitentiary officials and Russia’s top prosecutor were posted on Navalny's website. The 44-year-old Navalny, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent, was arrested on Jan. 17 upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation. Last month, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation while convalescing in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated — and which the European Сourt of Human Rights has ruled to be unlawful. “My condition has worsened. I feel acute pain in my right leg, and I feel numbness in its lower part,” Navalny wrote in the letter. “I have trouble walking.” He said that the authorities have given him standard pills and ointment for his pain, but refused to accept medicines earlier prescribed by his doctor. He accused prison officials of undermining his health with a “deliberate denial of due medical assistance." Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said earlier Thursday that Navalny had undergone medical check-ups the previous day, describing his condition as “stable and satisfactory.” But Navalny's lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, said Thursday after visiting him in prison that “his right leg is in terrible shape.” Mikhailova said on Dozhd TV that Navalny was taken to a hospital outside his prison on Wednesday for magnetic resonance tomography but wasn't given the results. She said Navalny had experienced back pain for four weeks, but prison officials also would not permit a visit by his doctor. The lawyer argued that authorities should transfer Navalny to Moscow so he could get better treatment. Navalny’s wife, Yulia, said on Instagram that she doesn’t trust the prison medics, and she called on authorities to let doctors who have her and her husband's trust in to see him. She said prison authorities refused to accept a note from Navalny's doctor prescribing some exercises to ease his back pain. She denounced the treatment of her husband in prison as part of Putin’s “personal revenge.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the Kremlin wasn't following Navalny's condition, referring questions to the penitentiary service. Earlier this month, Navalny was moved to a prison colony in Pokrov in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of Moscow. The facility stands out among Russian penitentiaries for its particularly strict regime that includes routines like standing at attention for hours. In a note earlier this month, Navalny described the prison, IK-2, as a “friendly concentration camp.” He said he hadn’t seen “even a hint at violence” there but lived under controls that he compared to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Navalny, whom prison authorities had earlier marked as a flight risk, said he was subject to particularly close oversight, including a guard waking him up every hour at night and filming him to demonstrate he is in the required place. He complained about the practice in a separate letter to the chief of the penitentiary service and the top prosecutor that also was released Thursday, saying that the hourly checks amount to “sleep deprivation torture.” Navalny’s arrest in January triggered a wave of protests that drew tens of thousands of participants across Russia. Authorities detained about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days. Navalny's associates called earlier this week for another mass protest across the country to demand his release from prison. They urged Russians to sign up for a protest on an interactive map and said they would set a date for it when the number of people willing to take part reaches at least 500,000 nationwide. More than 250,000 have registered on a dedicated website since it opened Tuesday. Russian officials have rejected demands from the United States and the European Union to free Navalny and stop the crackdown on his supporters. An earlier version corrected the surname of Navalny's lawyer to Mikhailova, not Volkova, ---------------------------- Navalny, a lawyer by training, earned a reputation as a Kremlin enemy writing about official corruption. His activism expanded to organizing anti-government protests and seeking political office, and over the years he'd experienced frequent jailings, a chemical attack and an unexplained illness. Now, his family, friends and supporters have a new reason to worry. The 44-year-old opposition remained in grave condition in a Siberian hospital Friday more than a day after he became ill on a flight back to Moscow and fell into a coma. His allies suspect he drank poisoned tea before boarding the plane. His wife wants him moved to a clinic in Germany that has treated other Russian dissidents. After announcing that they found no poison in Navalny's system, doctors in Siberia refused to authorize the transfer, saying his condition was too unstable. But when German specialists later examined the politician and said he was fit for transfer, the Russian doctors reversed themselves and said he could go. His suffering is a shock and a worry to supporters who see him as a stalwart in Russia's beleaguered opposition. “Many times I was asked publicly and privately how I can support this terrible Navalny ... I always answered the same way: Alexei Navalny risks his life every day for his beliefs,” Grigory Chkhartishvili, a dissident author noted for detective novels written under the pen-name Boris Akunin, said on social media after Navalny's illness was announced. Navalny began his rise to prominence by focusing on corruption in Russia’s murky mix of politics and business. In 2008, he bought shares in Russian oil and gas companies, so he could push for transparency as an activist shareholder. Navalny’s work to expose corrupt elites had a pocketbook appeal to the Russian people's widespread sense of being cheated. Whether he was writing for his website or running for public office, his target likely better resonated with potential supporters than more abstract goals such democratic ideals and human rights. Russia’s state-controlled television channels ignored Navalny, but his investigations of dubious contracts and officials' luxurious lifestyles got wide attention through the back channels of YouTube videos and social media posts. The information uncovered by his Fund For Fighting Corruption mostly overrode the reservations raised about Navalny's nationalist streak and his advocacy for the rights of ethnic Russians, even in opposition circles. Navalny also understood the power of a pithy phrase and a potent image. His description of President Vladimir Putin’s power-base United Russia party as “the party of crooks and thieves” attained instant popularity. A lengthy investigation into then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s lavish country getaway boiled down to the property's well-appointed duck house; yellow duck toys soon became a way of deriding the prime minister. The founder of two opposition political parties, he also also be flippant in the face of difficulty, tweeting sarcastic remarks from police custody or courtrooms on the many occasions he was arrested. In 2017, after an assailant threw green-hued disinfectant in his face, seriously damaging one of his eyes, Navalny joked in a video blog that people were comparing him to comic book character the Hulk. Navalny frequently was jailed for participating in protests — or sometimes even as he headed to them. Online video reports of protests broadcast from Navalny’s studios sometimes were enlivened by on-camera police raids. He also faced more serious legal troubles. In 2013, on the day after Navalny had registered as a candidate for Moscow mayor, he was sentenced to five years in prison for an embezzlement conviction. He was accused of stealing timber from a company in a region where he was an adviser to the reformist governor. But in a hugely surprising move, the prosecutor’s office appealed the sentence hours later. The opposition attributed his release to the massive protests that greeted news of Navalny's imprisonment, but many observers thought it was a calculated move by authorities to make sure the mayoral election two months later carried a tint of legitimacy. Navalny ended up placing second, an impressive performance against the incumbent mayor with the backing of Putin’s political machine and who was popular among Muscovites for improving the capital’s infrastructure and aesthetics. The embezzlement conviction was eventually reinstated, and Navalny was convicted, along with his brother Oleg, in another embezzlement case in 2014. His brother received a 3 1/2-year prison sentence, while Navalny's sentence was suspended. Although he did not get sent to prison, the conviction blocked Navalny from being able to carry out his plans to run against Putin in Russia's 2018 presidential election. His own legal obstacles and the widespread obstruction authorities set before other independent candidates seeking public office led Navalny and his organization to adopt a new strategy for the 2019 Moscow city council elections. The “Smart Vote” initiative analyzed which candidate in each district appeared to have the best chance of beating United Russia's pick and tried to drum up support for that candidate. The initiative appeared to be a success, with nearly half of the city council seats going to “systemic opposition” candidates, although its effectiveness could not be quantified. Navalny intended to redeploy the same strategy in next year’s national parliament elections. But the Moscow city council races may have foretold even worse troubles for Navalny. While jailed last summer for taking part in a pre-election protest against the exclusion of many independent candidates, Navalny became ill and was taken to a hospital. The official version was that he had suffered an allergic reaction. His supporters and some doctors said at the time that poisoning appeared to be a more likely explanation. -------------------- Soliciting for Maziliteralworks' Donation/any amount or Media laptop/window Computers' Donation, Phone Media Assistance for Mazi Literal Works' Dissemination/Publication.Upon your Response,more info of the US/Canadian Coordinator  will be sent. 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