Geneva, Switzerland:
A group of UN rights professionals expressed alarm Wednesday at the deteriorating wellness of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and referred to as for his urgent health-related evacuation from Russia.
“We believe Mr Navalny’s life is in serious danger,” warned the 4 independent professionals on the challenges of freedom of expression, torture, extrajudicial executions and the suitable to physical and mental wellness.
They referred to as on Russian authorities to permit Navalny “to be evacuated for urgent medical treatment abroad,” stressing that “the Russian government is accountable for Mr Navalny’s life and health while he is in detention.”
Navalny, who is on hunger strike in a Russian penal colony, has been incarcerated beneath harsh circumstances devoid of sufficient health-related care and has been barred from seeing physicians of his personal deciding on, they stated.
“We are deeply troubled that Mr Navalny is being kept in conditions that could amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” stated the professionals, who are appointed by the UN but do not speak on behalf of the world body.
Their comments came as protests gathered for a series of nationwide demonstrations in help of Navalny, with police moving rapidly to make arrests, like of essential aides of the jailed opposition figure.
Navalny was detained when he returned to Russia in January just after months recovering in Germany from a close to-fatal nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin — an accusation it rejects.
He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years on old fraud charges his supporters say have been politically motivated and has been serving time in a penal colony in the town of Pokrov about one hundred kilometres (60 miles) east of Moscow.
His wellness has been failing given that he launched a hunger strike 3 weeks ago.
“We are extremely concerned that the current danger to Mr Navalny’s life, his most recent incarceration and the past attacks on him, including an attempt against his life last August with the nerve agent Novichok… are all part of a deliberate pattern of retaliation against him for his criticism of the Russian government and a gross violation of his human rights,” the UN professionals stated.
Pointing to prior rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, the professionals stressed that “there is no valid legal basis for Mr Navalny’s arrest, trial and imprisonment in Pokrov.”