Trevor Reed: Former US Marine, 9 Years in Russia and Hunger Strike |

Former US Marine and student Trevor Reed, who is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia, has gone on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment and human rights abuses, his family has said.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service has denied the allegations made by its lawyer, but the Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.

Reed was convicted last year on charges of endangering the lives of two police officers in Moscow while intoxicated, a charge he denied. He had stated that the decision was clearly political, while Washington called his trial “theater of the absurd.”

“We have received a report from a lawyer that Trevor has gone on a hunger strike to protest his arbitrary detention and the numerous and blatant violations of his basic human rights and rights under Russian law by the Russian authorities,” the statement said. family in an announcement late Monday.

There was no immediate comment on the hunger strike from the prison where he was being held. The US Embassy in Moscow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reed’s family did not say how long they intended to go on hunger strike, but called on US authorities to support him, citing comments made by Washington during the hunger strike of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny earlier this year.

“We remember the strong reaction of this government when a Russian dissident went on a hunger strike several months ago and we look forward to our son receiving the same attention,” the family said.

The Directorate of Russia’s Federal Prison Service in Mordovia, where the 29-year-old Trevor penitentiary is located about 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow, has denied that Trevor Reed went on a hunger strike, announcing that information does not correspond to reality.

Reed went on a hunger strike on November 4 over “repeated” violations of his rights in prison, his lawyer Sergei Nikitenkov told AFP. He also told TASS earlier that Reed had gone on hunger strike because his rights, including the right to correspondence and meetings, were being violated.

A spokesman for Russian President Dmitry Peshkov declined to comment on reports that American student Trevor Reed had gone on a hunger strike, saying it was the responsibility of Russia’s Federal Prison Service.