MOSCOW (AP) – Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Tuesday he was demanding his imprisonment for detaining the Koran, which he intended to study while serving time outside Moscow.
Navalny has been on hunger strike for two weeks, protesting the refusal of prison officials to let his doctor examine him behind bars after he presented with severe back and leg pain. But he said on Tuesday in an Instagram post that his first lawsuit against prison officials had to do with the Muslim holy book.
“The fact is that they do not give my Qur’an. And it bothers me, “Navalny said, adding that” studying deeply “the Qur’an was one of several goals of” self-improvement “that was set in prison. The politician said he has not been given access to none of the books he brought or ordered during the past month, because they all have to be “inspected by extremism,” according to officials taking three months.
“So I wrote one more petition to the (prison) boss and filed a lawsuit,” Navalny said. “Books are everything, and if I have to sue for my right to read, I’ll be suing.”
Navalny, 44, is the fiercest internal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that the Kremlin blames. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
A court ordered Navalny in February to serve 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the conditions of his probation, even when he was convalescing in Germany, following a 2014 embezzlement sentence. the conviction was fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights considered it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”
Authorities transferred Navalny last month from Moscow prison to the IK-2 penal colony in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of the Russian capital. The Pokrov city facility stands out for its especially strict prison routines, which include being vigilant for hours.
Within weeks of being jailed, Navalny said he had severe back and leg pain and was effectively sleep deprived because a guard checked him every night. He went on a hunger strike two weeks ago, demanding access to proper medication and a visit from his doctor. Russia’s state penitentiary service says the politician is receiving all the medical help he needs.
Last week Navalny was taken to prison medical center with cough and fever. In an Instagram post, he said three of the 15 people he stays with have tuberculosis, a contagious disease that spreads through the air.
On Monday, Navalny’s allies said on Twitter that they had moved him back to a general home from the medical unit. The politician has lost eight kilograms (more than 17 pounds) since the hunger strike began and 15 kilograms (33 pounds) in total since he arrived at the colony, according to his team.
Prison officials “see the severity of the hunger strike” and threaten to feed it by force, Navalny’s team said in a tweet.
Navalny has been criticized over the years for using nationalist rhetoric about migrants, many of whom come to Russia from predominantly Muslim nations in Central Asia.
He said on Tuesday that he had realized his “development as a Christian requires studying the Qur’an,” and added that he decided to become “the champion of the Qur’an among non-Muslim Russian politicians.”
This week, Muslims in many parts of the world mark the beginning of Ramadan, the holiest month of fasting.