“A real shame”
“It's a shame. “The hearse drivers are now refusing to take Alexei out of the morgue,” complained Ivan Zhdanov, one of the late opponent’s close associates, on Telegram.
“Firstly, we were not allowed to rent a funeral home to say goodbye to Alexei. And now that the funeral service is supposed to take place in the church, the funeral directors tell us that no hearse will take the body there,” his team confirmed on social media.
According to her, the funeral teams “receive calls from unknown people threatening them not to take Alexei’s body anywhere.”
Negative pressure
The funeral of the opponent and anti-corruption activist is scheduled to take place on Friday at 2 p.m. (local time) in a church southeast of the Russian capital Moscow, in the district where Alexei Navalny lived when he was at large. He was to be buried two hours later at the nearby Borissovo Cemetery.
The opponent's funeral is scheduled to take place on Friday in a church in southeast Moscow.
OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP
Since Alexei Navalny's body was handed over to his mother last Saturday, the team of the opponent, who died at the age of 47, had been looking for a place for a “public farewell” but was “rejected” at every request. She accuses the authorities of putting pressure on the managers.