Russia arrests about 200 people in demonstrations for Navajo

Supporters of the fiercest critic Vladimir Putin fear that Navalny may die soon and ask that proper medical attention be given.

Officials show he is being treated like any other prisoner and warn that the protests rally is illegal.

OVD-Info, an organisation that monitors protests and the number of detainees, announced that 199 people were arrested in connection with protests in dozens of countries across the country, while the number could increase.

Navajo spokeswoman Kyra Jarmis and a close associate Lubov Sobol were arrested near their homes in Moscow hours before a protest rally began near the Kremlin.

Tens of police vans were sent to the center of town. The square where activists planned to gather is surrounded by metal barriers, like the Red Square, Rain television channel reported.

Navalny's allies said they would first gather in two other countries in downtown Moscow.

In Russia's Far East, 200 to 300 people gathered in Vladivostok in support of Navalny, and some held banners “Lari for political prisoners” and “No war, oppression and torture”.

European Council President Charles Michel said it was the sad “that Navalny's closest associates were brought before the protests.

Navajo associate Ruslan Shavedinov wrote on Twitter that “all of Russia, potential protesters are being arrested, and that this is oppression and cannot be accepted we must fight this darkness. ”

Navalny was arrested in January when he returned to Russia after a five-month healing in Germany by poisoning, for which he personally blamed the Russian president.

The leader of the Russian opposition was sentenced to two and a half years for fraud in 2014, but claims the issue is politically motivated.

Three weeks ago, he went on a hunger strike, accusing prison authorities of failing to let him be visited by a doctor and that he has a double-time disc and has lost feeling in his arms and legs.

Navajo has been in a hospital for prisoners in the town of Vladimir in northeast Moscow since Sunday night.

“He is very weak, has difficulty sitting down and speaking,” his lawyer, Olga Mihailova, told reporters Tuesday, claiming that he “was not receiving adequate medical attention”.

Mihailova demanded that Navajo be transferred immediately to a civil “x1> in Moscow “so that he would not die”.