Udaltsov was detained when he and a group of protesters attempted to march toward the presidential administration building in Moscow at the end of a routine Day of Wrath protest last week, intending to deliver a list of grievances to government officials. While the rally was sanctioned by city authorities, the march was not; Udaltsov was arrested along with three others. He was convicted of disobeying police and declared a hunger strike in protest.

An ambulance was first called for Udaltsov on October 15, and a blood analysis showed that the activist’s blood sugar level was lower than normal. At the time, Udaltsov declined to be admitted to the hospital.

The next day, doctors claimed that a second test showed that Udaltsov “is not yet in such a critical condition” as to require hospitalization. However, doctors declined to admit him despite Udaltsov’s requests; apparently, he felt that his condition had worsened significantly.

When Udaltsov asked to file a complaint against the head doctor for denying him admittance to the hospital, police turned him down.

Finally, on the night of October 16th, the activist was admitted to the therapeudic wing of Moscow’s Hospital #12 with complaints of low blood sugar, heart pain and “noises in his head.”

Further updates on Udaltsov’s condition will be related through the Left Front’s press service and theOtherRussia.org.

Approximately 200 people participated in the rally, which is held regularly on the 12th of every month to provide a forum for Russians to express their collective discontent with government authorities. The protesters hailed from a variety of opposition and civil rights movements, including the Moscow Council, the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, For Human Rights, the Left Front, the Moscow Workers Council, groups of automobile owners, environmental activists, and others.

Gathered near the Kremlin on Teatralnaya Square, the group chanted anti-government slogans such as “it’s time to change the government,” “Russia without Putin,” “it’s time to change course,” and “fictional elections are illegal,” the latter representing protesters’ current main grievance. Several leading activists, including Sergei Udaltsov, Lev Ponomarev, and Konstantin Kosyakin, gave speeches calling for a boycott of December parliamentary elections and telling people to go out into the streets in a sign of protest.

Police had thoroughly cordoned off Teatralnaya Square, with rows of officers lining the path from the square to the nearby metro in order to prevent participants from moving outside of their designated area of protest. The event had been sanctioned by Moscow city authorities, but an application to hold a subsequent march to the presidential administration building was turned down on the basis that it would cause traffic jams. However, Kosyakin proposed that the group march anyway, in spite of the ban.

The would-be marchers were immediately halted by police, with four arrested in total. As of Wednesday night, the activists were still in police holding.

A total of nine Day of Wrath protests have been declared unlawful by Moscow city authorities and cracked down upon between 2010 and 2011. Today’s was the first to be granted sanction in a long time, the ban on the march notwithstanding.

Following a Day of Wrath protest this past August, organizers announced that they were giving government authorities a month to organize a meeting between members of the country’s top leadership and themselves to discuss the demands of participants in detail. The meeting, however, never took place.

The arrests began when the protesters unfurled posters saying “Freedom to Sergei Udaltsov,” the Left Front leader currently on hunger strike in jail, and pictures of political prisoner Taisiya Osipova. Oppositionists then linked arms and sat on the ground, crying “freedom to Taisiya Osipova” and “Russia without Putin.”

According to eyewitnesses, police acted very brutally toward the protesters. “They surrounded us in a ring and then began pulling us out one by one. They twisted our arms and dragged us along the ground,” said Polina Ivanova, an Other Russia member and one of those detained.

Others eyewitnesses reported that at least two oppositionists were severely beaten in police custody.

While arrests were being made, those present at the rally began clapping in protest. One activist from the Solidarity opposition movement was dragged out of the crowd and thrown into a police bus for his applause.

Left Front Press Secretary Anastasia Udaltsova was detained halfway to the building of the presidential administration, where she intended to hand in a list of demands of rally members.

About 200 people took part in the Day of Wrath protest, which is held monthly and meant to provide a place for Moscow residents to voice their discontent with city authorities on relevant economic, social and political issues.

Moscow city authorities had refused to sanction the August 12 protest on the grounds that there was not enough room on the nearby sidewalk for pedestrians to pass.

As an alternative, the city proposed that the protest be held on the Shevchenko Embankment, where officials have suggested moving all protests not allowed in the city center since 2007. The embankment is outside of central Moscow and would render any protests held there hardly visible to the public.

Day of Wrath organizers Sergei Udaltsov, Left Front co-leader Konstantin Kosyakin and human rights advocate Lev Ponomarev say that the refusal to sanction the rally on Teatralnaya Square was unlawful.

Unsanctioned protests in Russia are routinely cracked down upon, often in a brutal fashion, by police.

Additionally, two of the three protest organizers – Udaltsov and Kosyakin – are currently under administrative arrest following an unsanctioned Strategy 31 protest on August 31. Udaltsov was given a 15 day sentence; Kosyakin was given 5 days. They were charged with disobeying police orders.

According to Anastasia Udaltsova, press secretary for Udaltsov’s Left Front movement, the oppositionist does not believe he is guilty and has announced a hunger strike for the duration of his arrest.

Judge Yelena Abramova convicted Udaltsov on charges of disobeying the lawful demands of a police officer – an administrative offense in Russia.

Udaltsov was first detained on February 12 when approximately 500 protesters gathered on Moscow’s Teatralnaya Square for the Russian opposition’s monthly Day of Wrath protest. It was the first time that city authorities had agreed to sanction the rally, with previous events routinely cracked down on by police. Udaltsov also applied for permission to hold a march following the protest but was denied.

Intended as a venue to voice Russians’ general grievances against their government, the Day of Wrath rally attracted participants from the Left Front, the Solidarity opposition movement, the Russian Federation of Automobile Owners, the Movement in Defense of the Khimki Forest, defrauded real estate investors, communists, and numerous other causes.

Following the rally, writes Kasparov.ru, law enforcement officials gave Udaltsov permission to march along the sidewalk to the nearby presidential administration building to hand in a list of demands and symbolic “black marks,” with the caveat that the participants could not carry any flags of shout slogans along the way.

About 250 people joined in the march. “There were no flags or slogans,” Udaltsov said. However, upon reaching the Hotel Metropol, the marchers found themselves blocked by OMON riot police, who soon began to detain them. The first to be arrested was Udaltsov himself.

According to Udaltsov, 22 people were arrested during the march. Moscow city police put the figure at 14.

It was unclear exactly what orders police gave to Udaltsov that he supposedly disobeyed, or what else occurred that provoked the OMON to arrest some of the protesters – especially considering that a small group was allowed to go on and carry the list of demands to the presidential administration anyway. “Approximately 15 people went by themselves to Staraya Square and submitted our demands,” explained Udaltsov. “But it’s unclear why they had to stop us from walking. A march along the sidewalk is not a crisis.”

An opposition group in Moscow says it has been given the green light to hold an antigovernment protest in the Russian capital next week, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

The Left Front opposition movement said the February 12 “Day of Wrath” protest would air a range of demands under the slogan “Time for a change at the top.”

The demands include a halt in tariff rises, direct elections for regional governors, and the preservation of the threatened Khimki Forest near Moscow.

Authorities refused permission for all previous Day of Wrath protests in 2010, and police routinely stepped in to arrest demonstrators.

Sergei Udaltsov, a Left Front leader and one of the campaign’s organizers, told RFE/RL that authorities banned the protesters from marching to the presidential administration building in Moscow.

The Tverskoy Court handed down the ruling on September 7, convicting the 69-year-old leader of the organization For Human Rights of insubordination to a police officer. The accusations stemmed from Ponomarev’s participation as a co-organizer of an unsanctioned opposition protest dubbed the Day of Wrath, part of a series of demonstrations in which about 300 protesters gathered in Moscow on August 12 to demand the resignation of the Russian federal government and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. According to police figures, 35 people were detained at the event.

Ponomarev decided to face the court on Tuesday without a lawyer. He denounced the ruling as politically motivated.

As a result of his sentence, Ponomarev told Interfax, he was unable to attend a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between Russian rights leaders and United States presidential advisor Michael McFaul.

William Burns, the United States under secretary of state for political affairs who attended the meeting, was critical of the ruling. “I should note that it is regrettable that Lev Ponomarev, who was supposed to be at the meeting, was not able to attend,” he said in remarks to the Interfax news agency. “The freedom of assembly is very important to the United States and very important for any democratic society.”

The Russian bureau of the international human rights organization Amnesty International expressed concern at Tuesday’s ruling. “Lev Ponomarev, who was just recently named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has now received yet another punishment,” said bureau chief Sergei Nikitin.

Speaking to Ekho Moskvy radio, Memorial civil rights society chairman Oleg Orlov said that Ponomarev’s sentence was part of a disturbing pattern of crackdowns on human rights activists in Russia. “These kinds of sentences are becoming typical. They are repressive actions,” he said.

According to Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the Russian authorities are altogether scared of people coming out and protesting in the streets. This, she explained, is what explains “Ponomarev’s ridiculous punishment.”

The two other Day of Wrath organizers were also convicted of insubordination to an officer back on August 14. Konstantin Kosyakin was sentenced to three days of administrative arrest, and Sergei Udaltsov to four. Ponomarev’s court date was postponed after he fell ill in during holding in a police station and, fearing a hypertensive crisis, was hospitalized.