By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) – A former Moscow district official serving a long prison sentence in Russia for what he says were trumped-up political charges has declared a “dry hunger strike”, refusing both food and water.
Alexander Shestun, 61, is considered a political prisoner by Russia’s Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Memorial – which itself was ruled to be an “extremist movement” nL6N40S0OO by Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday.
Shestun was one of 11 jailed dissidents who appealed nL8N3SY1AM to world leaders last year for a mass release of Russian political prisoners and Ukrainian civilians held by Russia as part of any peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv L1N40U03R.
Shestun, who is diabetic, wrote in a letter seen by Reuters that he had stopped eating on March 30 and had refused water since April 7.
He said he was demanding the reinstatement of a visit by his children, which he said authorities had cancelled, to the penal colony where he is held in Tver region, northwest of Moscow.
He also demanded access to medical treatment after an incident in which he said prison staff had pressed his head to the floor with their feet for about 15 minutes and knocked out three of his teeth.
It was not possible to independently verify the alleged incident. Reuters has requested comment from the Russian prison service.
“The federal prison system essentially leaves him no other option for defending his rights,” Elena Filina, an exiled opposition politician and human rights campaigner, told Reuters.
Shestun was arrested in 2018 on corruption charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
A former member of the ruling United Russia party and head of the Serpukhov district, south of Moscow, Shestun became involved in a row with the powerful leader of the Moscow region.
In a case that attracted wide publicity, Shestun went public on YouTube, posting a covert recording of a meeting with a man he identified as a general of Russia’s FSB security service.
The man was heard warning him he would be “steamrollered” and jailed if he refused to resign.
Shestun refused and was eventually arrested.
He was sentenced in 2020 to 15 years in prison, which rose to 17 years with subsequent additional charges.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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