Amnesty International—the world’s leading human-rights group—said it believes Russia’s treatment of Alexei Navalny is so brutal that it could effectively amount to a long, painful, and slow execution. Navalny, the Putin nemesis who was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent last year, has recently gone on hunger strike in prison in an attempt to force authorities into giving him medical treatment. In recent days, he’s complained of a persistent cough and high temperature, and claimed that there have been cases of tuberculosis in his prison. Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, told Reuters on Wednesday: “Russia, the Russian authorities, may be placing him into a situation of a slow death and seeking to hide what is happening to him... Clearly the Russian authorities are violating his rights. We have to do more... [They] have already attempted to kill him, they are now detaining him, and imposing prison conditions, that amount to torture.”
