Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny hospitalised after suffering ‘allergic reaction’ in jail

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a jail stint for calling for unauthorised protests, was hospitalised after suffering an acute allergic reaction on Sunday, his spokeswoman said.

Navalny was jailed for 30 days this week for calling for an unauthorised march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition-minded candidates from a local election later this year.

Police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital at the march on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power.

Navalny was jailed for 30 days this week for calling for an unauthorised march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition-minded candidates from a local election later this year

Chants of ‘Russia without Putin’ and ‘Putin resign’ echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people. 

Navalny had called the protest to persuade officials to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a September 8 vote.

Authorities say they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support.

Police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital at the march on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power 

Chants of ‘Russia without Putin’ and ‘Putin resign’ echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people 

Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised. OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political arrests in Russia , said 638 people were detained 

Navalny and his allies have no seats in parliament and are starved of air time on state TV where many Russians still get their news.

Opinion polls in the past have shown support for Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, only in the single digits. 

But backers note he won almost a third of the vote in a 2013 Moscow mayoral race and say his movement could build momentum in the Russian capital if allowed to compete fairly.

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter that Navalny had been hospitalised on Sunday morning with ‘severe swelling of the face and skin redness.’

Police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital at the march on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power

She said the cause of Navalny’s allergic reaction was unknown and that he had never had suffered from such reactions in the past.

The Russian Interior Ministry and the Moscow hospital where Navalny’s spokeswoman said he was being treated could not immediately be reached for comment.

Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organising anti-government demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights last year ruled that Russia’s arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically-motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.