Why is Alexei Navalny on a hunger strike? All you need to know about Putin's critic

Alexei Navalny is known as one of the fiercest faces of the opposition and vehement critic of the very entrenched Putin-led government in Russia. This Russian lawyer has successfully amassed millions of followers on social media and has also managed to get hundreds of protesters to take the streets and then be detained over the subject of his own detention by Russian authorities. Pursuant to an escalation of the movement that began after he was the target of a vile and devious poisoning attempt last year.

Alexei Navalny on a hunger strike

Alexei Navalny announced that he was going on a hunger strike to protest treatment in the prison. He has been on a hunger strike since March 31 and has reported that the police threatens to force-feed him. Navalny's allies in an Instagram post that prison officials have told him about his deteriorating health. According to his allies, Navalny has also lost weight due to the hunger strike. 

The opposition leader on April 16 said that the prison officials refused to let his physician in. He said that the officials in prison fear that the checkup will reveal the loss of sensation in the limbs. He said that it may be connected to the poisoning and reiterated he had “an absolutely guaranteed right- to be examined by an independent civilian doctor.” Anti-corruption figure and vehement critic of Vladimir Putin, Navaly is currently behind bars around the periphery of Moscow. 

He is reported to have been jailed under jarring conditions and has been denied adequate medical care. Russian authorities have supposedly barred him from seeing a doctor of his choice. Navalny has accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his attempted murder. 

"The detention facility where Navalny has been sent is a place where ’political criminals’ are subjected to frequent and harsh torturous acts until they eventually break down" said Vadim Kobzev, attorney appearing for Navalny.

This 44-year-old Russian lawyer was a member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council. He is the leader of the Russia of the Future Party and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). He has come to reflect the anguish of the younger generation of Russians who grew up under Putin. Navalny had also expressed his intentions to contest against President Vladimir Putin in the Presidential Elections, 2018. However, Russian election officials had formally barred him, deeming that 'he was not eligible to run for elections'.

Alexei Navalny arrest in Germany

Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia in January. He had been in Germany for several months where he was receiving treatment after surviving a nerve agent poisoning attempt on his life, which, it has been claimed, was carried out by Russian agents. The Kremlin (home and symbol of the government of the Russian Federation) however, has outrightly denied such involvement, however, it has also ruled out any criminal investigation in the poisoning episode. However, his bravery in returning to Russia after barely surviving assassination and his subsequent travails in prison have earmarked him as an anti-Putin icon.

Alexei Navalny's alleged poisoning 

In August 2020, Navalny along with his wife Yulia Navalnaya were on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He fell ill during the flight following which he was admitted to a hospital. Navalny's aides alleged that he had been poisoned and demanded his transfer from Russia to Germany for treatment.

Russian doctors ruled out poisoning but when Navalny reached Berlin, German doctors concluded that he was poisoned using Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. Navalny recovered following weeks in a medically-induced coma. Navalny continued his criticism of the Russian state from Germany and claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind his poisoning. 

Alexei Navalny behind Russian prison system 

Navalny has been sentenced to over two years in prison in February 2021 by a court that said he violated the 2014 suspended term while in Germany for treatment. Navalny was arrested soon after returning from Germany on January 17, which prompted widespread protests across Russia demanding his release. The said court pronounced that he serve the remaining months of his suspended sentence in prison. 

Oscillating at the receiving end of this trial, protesters gathered in the streets of Moscow and over 1,000 people were detained by law enforcement authorities

Currently, Alexei Navalny is jailed within the Russian prison system. The 44-year-old is said to be lodged in a ‘notorious’ penal colony outside Moscow in Kolchugino located in the Vladimir region, Russia's state-run news agency RIA-Novosti said, citing Moscow's Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) that monitors prisoners. Navalny is held at IK-2 penal camp in detention center-3 to serve his jail time at Moscow prison, pending the outcome of four legal matters which according to him, he says are all trumped up. 

According to media reports, he is 'the man Putin fears the most', and this is in a part of the world where autocratic leaders have had few qualms of dispatching their political rivals or anything they view as a threat to their rule.