Still No Confirmation of Medical Care for Alexanyan

On the 11th day of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s hunger strike, we see more and more contradictory reports that fatally ill prisoner Vasily Alexanyan has been “spirited off” to a new facility to finally receive the medical care he was being denied for so long. Yet there is a long pattern of lies from the government on this case that we should be used to by now. According to a recent press release from his lawyers, they still have not been able to confirm that Alexanyan is receiving treatment. In fact, neither his lawyers or family have any idea where he even is after being sent away to a “secret location.” Refusal to inform the lawyers about a prisoner’s whereabouts and medical treatment is a violation of Russian law – the latest of many illegal actions by the prosecutors. One blogger has already called these latest developments in the Yukos case “Russia’s Guantanamo.” An apt characterization indeed.