Russian repression - over a thousand protesters arrested in Moscow

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Russian Police Arrest More Than 1,000 in Moscow Election Protest

Police in Russia detained more than 1,000 people in Moscow Saturday in what was the biggest crackdown of dissent in recent times and a sign that the opposition is becoming more defiant as it stands up to President Vladimir Putin’s stronghold on power. The protesters were demonstrating against the move to exclude opposition candidates from the ballot for Moscow’s city council. Several opposition activists who had sought to run in the September election were arrested before the protest even began. Overall, police arrested 1,074 protesters throughout the long demonstrations that lasted around seven hours, according to Russian state news agencies that cited police figures. An independent monitor cited by the New York Times put the number of arrests slightly lower at 938.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny hospitalized in Moscow

Navalny was taken by ambulance to the hospital early Sunday morning after suffering what authorities said was a “severe allergic reaction,” the spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

Navalny's face was swollen, his skin red, and he was now in a ward at Moscow's City Hospital 64, where police were guarding his bedside, according to Yarmysh.

She said the cause of the allergy had not yet been identified, and noted that Navalny “all his life has never before experienced an allergic reaction.” She added that he was receiving "all necessary medical care."

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Russian Police Detain Over 1,000 Opposition Protesters in Central Moscow (again)

Police removed Sobol, an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, from a taxi and bundled her into a van minutes before the start of what anti-Kremlin activists described as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from an election next month.

In another blow to Navalny, Russian investigators opened a criminal investigation into the alleged laundering of 1 billion rubles ($15.3 million) by his anti-corruption foundation. Navalny and his allies say the foundation, which has published a slew of embarrassing investigations into government officials, is transparently financed from public donations.

OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police had detained 1,001 people in Moscow on Saturday, in some cases beating them with truncheons as they lay on the floor. Reuters reporters witnessed dozens of arrests. In one case police carried off a man as he clung upside down to his bicycle.