No doctors for Navalny

Several doctors were prevented from seeing Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prison hospital yesterday amid his threeweek hunger strike, as authorities stepped up actions against his supporters on the eve of planned protests. Navalnywas transferred this week from a penal colony east ofmoscowto a hospital unit at a prison in Vladimir, 180 kilometres east of the capital, after his lawyers and associates said his condition has dramatically worsened. In a post on his Instagram account, Navalny said he underwent gruelling physical searches before and after his transfer, and wryly described his condition. ‘‘You would laugh if you see me now– a skeleton staggers around his cell,’’ the post read. ‘‘They can use me to scare children who refuse to eat.’’ His personal physician led three other medical experts to try to visit Navalny at the prison clinic and the prison in the city of Vladimir. They were denied entry afterwaiting for several hours. Navalny, who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most adamant opponent, has been on a hunger strike since March 31 to protest the refusal by prison officials to let his doctors visit him and provide adequate treatment for back pains and numbness in his legs.