More than 150 people have already been sentenced to prison because they publicly paid homage to Kremlin critic Navalny. Meanwhile, pressure is growing on authorities to release the body.
The Putin regime is trying to suppress the public memory of Alexei Nalwalny by any means possible. Police have been in constant operation since the death of the Kremlin critic. Meanwhile, pressure is growing on Russian authorities to hand over the body to the family. More than 12,000 people supported an appeal to the Russian investigative committee within 24 hours, civil rights platform OWD-Info said.
“The body must be returned as soon as possible. At least after his death, Alexei Navalny should be with his family,” the statement said. According to Russian authorities, Navalny, who was physically weakened after many days in repeated solitary confinement, collapsed on Friday while walking in the prison camp in freezing temperatures. According to the prison service, resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful. It is unclear where the body is. According to reports from Kremlin-critical Novaya Gazeta Europa, this would be at the district hospital in the city of Salekhard, in the far north of Siberia.
Human rights activists accuse the Russian power apparatus of murder. The prominent anti-corruption activist's employees also assumed that Navalny was killed deliberately. There are memorial events around the world for the Russian opposition politician who died in prison aged 47. More than 400 people were arrested in various actions in Russia.
More than 150 arrests in honor of Navalny
Since the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, Russian courts have sentenced more than 150 people to short prison terms for public expressions of grief. Court documents show that on Saturday and Sunday in St. Petersburg alone, 154 people were sentenced to up to two weeks in prison for violating Russia's strict assembly laws.
Some similar decisions have been made in other Russian cities, according to human rights organizations and independent media outlets. Navalny, a prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died suddenly on Friday in a prison camp in the Arctic Circle at the age of 47.
In many Russian cities, people laid flowers at monuments to victims of political repression and lit candles in memory of Navalny. There were hundreds of arrests across the country over the weekend, and police and plainclothes men were stationed at memorials. On a bridge near the Kremlin, masked men threw flowers into trash bags that people had placed at an unofficial memorial to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in 2015. (APA/DPA/stein)