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The Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny during a hearing
Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / dpa
The Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny reports that he is "tortured by sleep deprivation," his confidants describe that Navalny's health is deteriorating in the notorious IK-2 prison camp.
Now the European Union is alarmed about the state of health of the imprisoned opposition member.
Russia must give Navalny access to medical care and let his lawyers see him, said a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The reports of Navalny's health are worrying.
The day before, the lawyers of the 44-year-old opponent of the Kremlin complained that their client's state of health was "not good" and that he was denied the necessary medical care.
Navalny himself described severe back pain in an Instagram post on Friday and complained that he could no longer put any weight on his right leg.
After all, in the worst case scenario, the Kremlin opponent joked that he would hobble through the camp with a wooden leg and look like a pirate.
"I just don't know where to get a pirate parrot for my shoulder."
"We are not aware of any problems in the prison system"
Russia's best-known opposition activist, who barely survived an assassination attempt with the neurotoxin Novichok last August, also denounced the sleep deprivation of the camp around 100 kilometers east of Moscow: he was woken up by a guard every hour at night, he reported.
The Kremlin rejected allegations of generally poor medical care in Russian penal camps.
There are individual complaints from prisoners, "but we are not aware of any systematic problems in the prison system," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov of the Interfax agency in Moscow.
In any case, the presidential administration is not responsible for such questions, but the penal system.
Furious charges from Nawalny's wife
The Kremlin was also unwilling to comment on the torture allegations or on a complaint from Navalny's wife Julia.
She had previously addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in unusually sharp words in an Instagram post: "I demand the immediate release of my husband, Alexej Navalny, whom he (Putin) illegally locked in prison," wrote Navalnaya.
Navalny was sentenced to several years in a prison camp at the beginning of February for allegedly violating reporting requirements in previous criminal proceedings while he was recovering from the poison attack in Germany.
The judgment has been heavily criticized internationally and classified as politically motivated.
For weeks, the EU has been calling for Nawalny to be released immediately.
mrc / dpa