Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny attends a court hearing in Moscow July 1, 2019. — Reuters pic
MOSCOW, July 28 — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a jail stint for calling for unauthorised protests, was hospitalised after suffering an acute allergic reaction today, 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 yesterday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against the opposition.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter that he had been hospitalised today morning with “severe swelling of the face and skin redness.”
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. — Reuters