Unidentified attackers beat up an activist campaigning for hospitalized Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, his colleagues said Thursday.
Alexei Baraboshkin, the local coordinator for Navalny, was «assaulted by unknown attackers» late Wednesday after receiving threats for several weeks, his campaign office wrote on Telegram.
It posted a picture of him with a bruised and bleeding eye.
Navalny is being treated in Germany for poisoning with Novichok in an incident that has sparked international condemnation and the threat of sanctions against Russia.
The Kremlin critic was leading a nationwide tactical voting campaign aimed at pushing out the ruling party in polls this weekend for regional and local assemblies.
Doctors suspected the Chelyabinsk campaigner suffered a fractured skull and concussion, according to a medical document posted by his team, who said the attackers did not take his money or phone.
A police spokeswoman in Chelyabinsk said officers were carrying out a check after receiving a report from the hospital, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported.
Chelyabinsk residents on Sunday will vote for regional and municipal deputies.
Early voting will begin nationwide from Friday, in a move to reduce the coronavirus risk at polling stations, while opposition activists fear this will make it easier to falsify the results.
Regional campaigners for Navalny have reported numerous threats and acts of intimidation as well as regular searches of their homes and detentions by police.
Students at house party admit to police that they have tested positive for Covid-19
Ohio police over Labour Day weekend busted a group of university students hosting a large house party despite having tested for COVID-19 and being in violation of the city’s quarantine rules.
The 5 September incident was caught on police body camera footage. An officer with the Oxford Police Department can be seen arriving at a home near Miami University where multiple people are hanging out on the front porch drinking and listening to music without wearing a mask.
The officer asks the party dwellers who lives at the home. One of the men tells the officer that 20 people are at the party. Per the city of Oxford’s coronavirus restrictions, mass gatherings are limited to only 10 individuals.
The officer asks the group to disperse while he runs the ID of one of the residents.
«I’ve never seen this before,» the officer is heard saying after running the student’s ID. “There’s an input on the computer that you tested positive for COVID”?
“Yes”, the student answers, adding that he tested positive just one week before and that everyone at the party has the virus.
“This is what we’re trying to prevent”, the officer says. “We want to keep this town open”.
Oxford police fined the six men who live at the home, as well as one visitor, $500 each.
Cincinnati’s WKRC reports that 1,000 Miami University students have tested positive for COVID-19 since fall classes began.
Miami University announced that it plans to resume in-person classes on Sept. 21. School officials have warned that students who refuse to be tested for COVID-19 be denied access to campus services and will have to return to remote learning.
