Lawyers for imprisoned outspoken Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, who suffers from a nerve disorder, say they have been barred from seeing him for a fourth time while his wife says he has been held incommunicado for a week, raising fears over his well-being.
"They did not allow the lawyers to get in once again. We have not heard anything from Vladimir Kara-Murza since July 2. His lawyers were told on July 4 that Volodya was transferred to a prison hospital for 'a checkup.' But the lawyers have not been allowed to enter the hospital since last Thursday," Yevgenia Kara-Murza wrote on the X social network on July 9.
Sunna Aevarsdottir, the general rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said: "It is absolutely unacceptable to deliberately prevent a family from knowing why their loved one is in hospital and what his current state of health is."
"Following the death of Aleksei Navalny in prison earlier this year, there are widespread fears that the Russian regime is arranging for its most prominent critics to die behind bars,” she said.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February under mysterious circumstances.
The Free Russia Foundation also issued a statement demanding "immediate and unrestricted access for Kara-Murza's lawyers to evaluate his condition and ensure that he is receiving necessary medical care."
"We urgently call upon the international community to join us in applying intense pressure on the Russian government to respect Kara-Murza's fundamental rights and to provide full transparency regarding his situation," the foundation said in the statement.
SEE ALSO: Who Is Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Russian Activist Jailed For Condemning The Ukraine War?In April 2023, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of discrediting the Russian military and treason over remarks he made about Kremlin policies.
The 42-year-old's current medical condition appeared after he suddenly fell deathly ill on two separate occasions in Moscow -- in 2015 and 2017-- with symptoms consistent with poisoning.
Tissue samples smuggled from Russia to the United States by his relatives were turned over to the FBI, which investigated the case as one of "intentional poisoning."
SEE ALSO: New FBI Documents Shed Light On Probe Into Russian Activist's Near-Fatal IllnessesU.S. government laboratories also conducted extensive tests on the samples, but documents released by the Justice Department suggest they were unable to reach a conclusive finding.
Kara-Murza holds Russian and British passports. He was initially arrested in April 2022 after returning to Russia from abroad and charged with disobeying a police officer.
He was later charged with discrediting the Russian military, a charge stemming from Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and a Kremlin push to stamp out criticism of the subject. He was later additionally charged with treason over remarks he made in speeches outside Russia that criticized Kremlin policies.
Kara-Murza and his supporters reject the charges as politically motivated.