Fears over Alexei Navalny’s health after visitors stopped from seeing him in jail
Ally claims Kremlin critic is suffering from serious back pain and has been blocked from meeting with lawyers
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Your support makes all the difference.Fears have been raised over Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s health while lawyers have reportedly been blocked from visiting him in prison.
Navalny began experiencing serious back pain last week, felt a numbness in his leg and was unable to stand on it, according to close ally Leonid Volkov, who claimed the 44-year-old had only been given two pills of Ibuprofen as a remedy.
Mr Volkov said Navalny's lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev, had tried to visit him for a scheduled meeting on Wednesday but had not been allowed in all day.
Mr Kobzev confirmed he had been denied access, which he said was unacceptable.
Navalny was jailed last month for two and a half years on charges he called fabricated.
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He was arrested in January as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from what doctors said was a nerve agent poisoning.
He is being held in a prison camp in Vladimir region, about 60 miles east of Moscow.
Navalny's lawyers said prison officials had told them it was not possible to visit their client due to unspecified security measures.
Speaking by phone from outside the camp, Mr Kobzev told Reuters the lawyers had been visiting Navalny on a daily basis while he was in custody in the Vladimir region, and that Wednesday was the first time they had not been allowed to see him.
Mr Volkov said it was possible Navalny had been moved to the prison hospital and that the facility's administration was trying to hide that fact.
“Given all of the circumstances known to us, the sharp deterioration of his health can only cause extreme concern,” he said.
The federal prison service and the regional one in Vladimir did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Navalny's allies have held protests calling for his release and on Tuesday announced plans to stage what they hope will be the biggest anti-Kremlin street protest in modern Russian history this spring, in a new push to win his freedom.
The authorities say such protests are illegal.
The West has demanded Russia release Navalny, something Moscow has called unacceptable interference in its internal affairs.
Russian authorities say they have seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned and have suggested he is a Western puppet sent back to try to destabilise the political situation in Russia.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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