Russian authorities say Navalny's condition stable

Moscow, March 25 Russian authorities on Thursday said jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny was in "good" health, after reports by his staff that his condition was deteriorating in a prison camp.

The prisons authority said the 44-year-old was examined on Wednesday, dpa news agency quoted Russia's Interfax as saying in a report.

"Alexei Navalny was among those who underwent an examination, which showed that he is in generally good and stable health," it said.

Earlier in the day, Navalny's chief of staff Leonid Volkov said he would interpret this to mean that he was in hospital.

"Something very bad is happening," Volkov wrote on Twitter.

Volkov added that Navalny's lawyers are currently not being let in to see him "without explanation of the reasons".

Earlier, Navalny's lawyers had said he was suffering from back pain and paralysis in one leg.

Volkov has called the IK-2 camp where Navalny is being held in Pokrov, 100 km east of Moscow, a "torture camp" and said the opposition leader was being held as "personal hostage" of President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny was sentenced to imprisonment at the penal camp in February for violating parole requirements from an earlier sentence, while he was recovering from a poisoning attack in Germany.

He has blamed the poisoning on the government and said his imprisonment was a personal act of vengeance for surviving the attack.

Germany, the European Union and the US have repeatedly called for Navalny's release.

 

( With inputs from IANS )