The wife of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, Yulia Navalnaïa, said on Tuesday that she was "
worried
" for the health of her husband, sick and on hunger strike, after seeing him in his penal colony.
To read also: Russia: plunged into the hell of the "correctional colony number 2" for Alexeï Navalny
Alexei Navalny, 44, announced on March 31 that he would stop eating to protest against his conditions of detention, accusing the prison administration of denying him access to a doctor while he suffered from a double herniated disc according to his lawyers.
Yulia Navalnaïa told on Instagram that she was able to visit him on Tuesday and to have been able to communicate with him on the phone and through a glass window.
"
He's just as cheerful and jovial, but he speaks with difficulty and every now and then he would hang up to lie on the table and rest,
" she wrote.
"
I know he will not give up (...) but after this visit, I worry even more about him
", she added.
According to her, the prison administration continues to deny access to a doctor to her husband, who now weighs 76 kilograms, or 9 kg less than at the start of his hunger strike.
Shortly before Tuesday, Alexeï Navalny announced on Instagram, on the occasion of the first day of Ramadan for many Muslims, to have filed a complaint against the penal colony where he is imprisoned for not having received the Koran as he had done. request.
"
Who would have thought that the first time I would sue my colony would be because of the Qur'an?"
», Said the opponent.
His books "
controlled for extremism
"
According to him, the books he had brought when he arrived in detention in early March have still not been returned to him because they must be "
checked for extremism
", a procedure taking three months.
"
Are you going to check if the Koran is extremist?"
It's stupid and illegal
”, he added:“
So I wrote a request to the director and lodged a complaint
”.
Criticized for taking racist positions in the 2000s and for his participation in far-right demonstrations, Alexeï Navalny explained that he had decided to "
study in depth and understand the Koran
" while in detention.
“
Everyone around me talks about Islam and Muslims all the time, and of course 99% of those who do know nothing about it.
But I decided that I would become a champion of the Quran among Russian non-Muslim politicians
, ”he wrote.
Alexeï Navalny is imprisoned for two and a half years because of a fraud case dating back to 2014, widely seen as a pretext to imprison him.
On Monday, he accused the authorities of wanting to force feed him.
