Police detained hundreds of protesters at an unauthorized opposition gathering in Moscow on Saturday, as authorities upped the pressure on top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny by launching a criminal probe into his anti-graft group.
Crowds of people marched in the capital's central boulevards for a protest "stroll" over the refusal by officials to let a number of opposition candidates run in September polls for city parliament seats.
Most of those candidates and opposition leaders, including Navalny, are being held by police following a protest rally last weekend, in which 1,400 demonstrators were detained -- one of the biggest crackdowns in years.
On Saturday, riot police were deployed in large numbers in central Moscow, some shops and cafes were shut, metal barriers were erected and the mobile internet was down for several hours.
At least 300 people were detained by police about two hours into the rally, according to OVD-Info, a non-governmental organisation that operates a hotline for detainees.
AFP correspondents also observed dozens of arrests along the route of the protest, as lines of police attempted to break up the flow of the crowd by blocking it with a human chain and grabbing people indiscriminately.
Lyubov Sobol, currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the local polls and an ally of key opposition leader Navalny, was dragged from a taxi and detained Saturday as she set off for the rally.
Many opposition leaders who attempted to run in the polls next month argue that the authorities have arbitrarily declared signatures they gathered to qualify invalid.
People in the crowd on Saturday said they just want the opposition to have a chance to run.
"I want there to be big changes... now there is an atmosphere of total control," Varvara, a 22-year-old artist, told AFP.
"I believe everyone should have a right to take part" in the polls," 39-year-old Robert said.
Riot police appeared to outnumber small groups of protesters who were walking along stretches of the leafy Boulevard Ring.
Authorities have launched investigations into last weekend's "mass riots" and "violence against police", echoing similar probes into protests against President Vladimir Putin in 2012 which saw several people jailed.
- New 'laundering' probe -
In the polls in September, the opposition hopes to end the monopoly of Kremlin loyalists in Moscow's parliament.
The body decides the city's multi-billion-dollar budget but lacks political independence from mayor Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of Putin.
Sobyanin has warned the opposition against "new provocations".
Navalny and other protest leaders argue corruption is rife in the capital. His anti-corruption foundation FBK this week published a new investigation into Sobyanin's deputy, accusing her of selling prime Moscow property to family members at rock-bottom prices.
On Saturday, FBK, which previously made other high-profile investigations into the questionable wealth of top officials, became a target of a new probe into "laundering" a billion rubles ($15.3 million).
Employees of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption (FBK) "received a large sum of money from third parties which they knew was procured illegally," investigators said.
"Accomplices" of FBK "gave a legal appearance" to the funds by transferring them to bank accounts and ultimately to the accounts of the FBK, they said.
The popular FBK collects money through donations, and Navalny's ally Leonid Volkov dismissed allegations of money laundering as an attempt to stamp out Navalny's national network of volunteers.
Navalny, currently in jail, was rushed to hospital last weekend in an incident his personal doctor blamed on possible poisoning with an unknown chemical substance.
A state toxicology lab said no traces were found.
President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment on the situation in Moscow.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
* Navalny is serving jail term for breaking protest laws
* Was rushed to hospital on Sunday with allergic reaction
* One doctor says poisoning cannot be ruled out
MOSCOW - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering an acute allergic reaction which one doctor said may have been the result of him being poisoned with an unknown chemical substance.
Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital from jail where he is serving a 30-day sentence for violating tough protest laws, a day after police in Moscow detained more than 1,000 people for an illegal demonstration called for by Navalny.
His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Navalny had signs of an acute allergy with "severe swelling of the face and skin redness."
A doctor at the hospital treating him told the Interfax news agency that Navalny had been diagnosed with hives and that he was feeling better.
But one doctor who has treated him in the past and was able to speak briefly with him and look at him through the crack of a door on Sunday said she could not rule out that he had been poisoned.
"We cannot rule out that toxic damage to the skin and mucous membranes by an unknown chemical substance was inflicted with the help of a 'third party'," Anastasia Vasilyeva, the doctor, wrote on Facebook.
Vasilyeva, who said Navalny had a rash on his upper body, skin lesions, and discharge from his eye, called for samples of Navalny's bed sheets, skin and hair to be tested for chemicals.
She said she found the fact that she had not been allowed to examine him properly suspicious.
The Moscow hospital where Navalny's spokeswoman said he was being treated could not be reached for comment.
Separately, Navalny's lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, wrote on Facebook on Sunday evening that doctors did not know what was wrong with her client, but that she deemed his symptoms strange given that he had never suffered from allergies in the past.
Navalny suffered a serious chemical burn to his right eye in 2017 as a result of an assault. Doctors were able to restore his sight and save the eye.
He was jailed on Wednesday this week for 30 days for calling for Saturday's unauthorised march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition candidates from a local election later this year.
While Navalny was behind bars, police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital during Saturday's rally in one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against the opposition, drawing international criticism.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Andrea Kalan, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that the large number of detentions in Moscow and the "use of disproportionate police force undermine rights of citizens to participate in the democratic process."
OPPOSITION ACTIVIST DETAINED
In a separate incident on Sunday, Russian activist Dmitry Gudkov, who was among the opposition candidates barred from running in local elections later this year, said he had been detained and taken to a Moscow police station.
The reason for Gudkov's detention was not immediately clear, his spokesman Alexei Obukhov told Reuters.
Russia's Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Navalny and Gudkov's detention.
Police on Sunday night detained about 10 people, including journalists, who had gathered in front of the hospital where Navalny was being treated.
Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organising anti-government demonstrations.
The European Court of Human Rights last year ruled Russia's arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW -- Russian police rounded up more than 1,000 people in Moscow 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.
The detentions came around a protest to demand that opposition members be allowed to run in a local election. Authorities had declared it illegal and sought to block participation, but thousands of people turned up anyway in one of the longest and most determined protests of recent times.
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.
At least one woman and a man appeared to have suffered serious head wounds. Activists said the crackdown was the harshest since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-12.
Saturday's events showed how Kremlin critics and especially younger people remain intent on pressing to open Russia's tightly choreographed political system to competition.
Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called the protest to persuade officials to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a Sept. 8 vote.
Authorities say they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support.
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.
Though Putin's approval rating is still high at well over 60 percent, it is lower than it used to be due to discontent over years of falling incomes. Last year, the 66-year-old former KGB intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new six-year term until 2024.
Burnishing his man of action image, Putin spent Saturday diving to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland in a mini-submarine to honor a Soviet submarine that sunk there in World War II.
ARRESTED 'SITTING ON A BENCH'
OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police detained at least 1,373 people before or at Saturday's protest. As in past sweeps, many were only held for a matter of hours.
Police put participation at more than 3,500 people, of whom it said around 700 people were journalists and bloggers. Activists said the number attending was likely to have been much higher.
Some activists were arrested twice after being released and then returning to protest in a different place. Reuters witnesses said some of those detained appeared to be ordinary passersby in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of those detained, Alexander Latyshev, 45, said he had come from the nearby Vladimir region to discuss business with an associate and been randomly detained. "I was just sitting on a bench (when they took me)," he told Reuters inside a police bus.
Police also raided an office being used by Navalny's supporters to live-stream the protest.
TV Rain, an independent station covering the protests, said its editor-in-chief had been called in for questioning after police visited its offices.
Under Russian law, the location and timing of such protests need to be agreed with authorities beforehand, something that was not done for Saturday's event.
Kremlin critic Navalny was jailed for 30 days on Wednesday and other members of the opposition have had their homes searched. Ilya Yashin, a Navalny ally, said police had searched his Moscow flat overnight before detaining him and driving him out of the capital. He called for another protest next Saturday.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, said on Twitter she had been detained on Saturday morning. Other prominent activists Dmitry Gudkov and Lyubov Sobol were also held.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin ally, had warned beforehand that authorities would act decisively against the risk of "serious provocations."
The police's investigative arm has already opened a criminal investigation into an opposition rally in June which it said may have obstructed the work of Moscow's electoral commission.
An authorized protest in Moscow last weekend, also calling for the disbarred candidates to be registered, was attended by more than 20,000 people, according to the White Counter monitoring group.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
