Russia’s most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been admitted to hospital after suffering a serious allergic reaction while in jail, his spokeswoman has said.
The 43-year-old, who was jailed for 30 days on Wednesday for calling for yesterday's unsanctioned protest in Moscow, was taken from the capital's detention facility to a hospital on Sunday morning.
Spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Mr Navalny, who has not previously experienced an allergic reaction, arrived at the hospital with severe facial swelling and red rashes on his skin.
She later added that Mr Navalny is in a "satisfactory condition".
Mr Navalny galvanised the anti-government protesters who rallied all day on Saturday against the exclusion of independent candidates from the September 8 ballot for Moscow City Council.
Ms Yarmysh tweeted on Sunday that Mr Navalny, who did not previously have any allergies, is being given the “necessary medical assistance” under police protection.
The opposition leader made a name for himself in Russia as an anti-corruption campaigner who led huge protests against President Vladimir Putin in 2011.
He has been jailed several times in the past, mostly for his involvement in unauthorised protests but also for embezzlement, a charge which he denied. The conviction prevented him from standing against Mr Putin in the 2018 election.
A group that monitors police arrests said on Sunday that nearly 1,400 people were detained at the protest on Saturday, the largest number of detentions at a rally in the Russian capital this decade.
The European Union has since criticised the “disproportionate” use of force against protesters, suggesting it undermined the “fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly”.
Police confronted protesters around the mayor's office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised during the demonstration, which lasted more than seven hours.
The protesters, who police said numbered about 3,500, shouted slogans including "Russia will be free" and "Who are you beating?"
Police searched Dozhd, an internet TV station that was covering the protest, and its editor-in-chief Alexandra Perepelova was ordered to undergo questioning at the Investigative Committee.
Officers eventually dispersed protesters from the area of the mayor's office, but many demonstrators reassembled at a square nearby, where new arrests began.
Police were seen beating some to the ground with wide truncheon swings while other demonstrators tried to push them away.
Before the protest, several opposition members were detained, including Ilya Yashin, Dmitry Gudkov, Lyubov Sobol and top Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov.
All were released later in the day and Mr Zhdanov and Ms Sobol went to the relocated protest and were detained again. There was no immediate information on what charges the detainees might face.
Once a local, low-key affair, the September vote for Moscow's city council has shaken up Russia's political scene as the Kremlin struggles with how to deal with strongly opposing views in its sprawling capital of 12.6 million.
The decision by electoral authorities to bar some opposition candidates from running for having allegedly insufficient signatures on their nominating petitions had already sparked several days of demonstrations even before Saturday's clashes in Moscow.
The city council, which has 45 seats, is responsible for a large municipal budget and is now controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
All of its seats, which have a five-year-term, are up for grabs in the September 8 vote.
