NEW DELHI: Over 400 individuals were detained in Russia while paying their respects to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who passed away at a remote Arctic penal colony, according to a renowned rights group.
Navalny’s sudden death at the age of 47 came as a devastating blow to many Russians who had placed their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin’s strongest adversary.Despite surviving a nerve agent poisoning and enduring multiple prison sentences, Navalny remained vocal in his relentless criticism of the Kremlin.
The news of his demise reverberated worldwide, prompting hundreds of people in various Russian cities to gather at impromptu memorials and monuments dedicated to victims of political repression, leaving flowers and candles in tribute to the politician.
By Saturday night, the OVD-Info rights group, which monitors political arrests and offers legal assistance, reported that 401 individuals had been detained in over a dozen cities. The largest number of arrests, exceeding 200, took place in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest from the Apostolic Orthodox Church, an independent religious group separate from the Russian Orthodox Church, was among those detained. He had announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested outside his home on Saturday morning.
Mikhnov-Voitenko was charged with organizing a rally and was initially held in a police precinct before being hospitalized with a stroke, according to OVD-Info. In St Petersburg, 42 of the individuals detained on Friday were sentenced by courts to serve jail terms ranging from one to six days, while nine others were fined.
In Moscow, at least six people were ordered to serve 15-day jail sentences, as reported by OVD-Info. Additionally, one person was imprisoned in the southern city of Krasnodar and two more in Bryansk, according to the rights group.
The news of Navalny’s death comes just a month before Russia’s presidential election, which is widely expected to grant President Vladimir Putin another six years in power.
Questions regarding the cause of Navalny’s death persist, and it remains uncertain when the authorities will release his body to his family. Navalny’s team declared on Saturday that the politician had been “murdered” and accused the authorities of intentionally delaying the release of his body.
Navalny’s mother and lawyers encountered conflicting information from various institutions they approached in their attempt to retrieve the body. “They’re leading us in circles and covering their tracks,” said Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, on Saturday.
Navalny’s closest ally and strategist, Leonid Volkov, stated on Sunday, “Everything in the colony is under surveillance. Every step he took was recorded from all angles over the years. Each employee had a video recorder. In two days, not a single video has been leaked or published. There is no room for uncertainty here.”
According to Yarmysh, a note given to Navalny’s mother stated that he died at 2:17 pm on Friday. When she arrived at the penal colony on Saturday, prison officials informed her that her son had succumbed to “sudden death syndrome,” as conveyed by Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia reported that Navalny fell ill and lost consciousness after a walk on Friday at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, located 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. Although an ambulance arrived, Navalny could not be revived. The cause of death is still under investigation, according to the service.
Navalny had been in custody since January 2021, having returned to Moscow after recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he attributed to the Kremlin. Since his arrest, he has received three prison sentences on charges he has vehemently denied as politically motivated.
Following the most recent verdict, which sentenced him to 19 years, Navalny remarked that he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of this regime.”
Shortly after news of Navalny’s death broke, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, made a dramatic appearance at the Munich Security Conference. She expressed uncertainty about the information provided by official Russian sources but warned that if the news was true, Putin and his associates would be held accountable for what they had done to the country, her family, and her husband.
Navalny’s sudden death at the age of 47 came as a devastating blow to many Russians who had placed their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin’s strongest adversary.Despite surviving a nerve agent poisoning and enduring multiple prison sentences, Navalny remained vocal in his relentless criticism of the Kremlin.
The news of his demise reverberated worldwide, prompting hundreds of people in various Russian cities to gather at impromptu memorials and monuments dedicated to victims of political repression, leaving flowers and candles in tribute to the politician.
By Saturday night, the OVD-Info rights group, which monitors political arrests and offers legal assistance, reported that 401 individuals had been detained in over a dozen cities. The largest number of arrests, exceeding 200, took place in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest from the Apostolic Orthodox Church, an independent religious group separate from the Russian Orthodox Church, was among those detained. He had announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested outside his home on Saturday morning.
Mikhnov-Voitenko was charged with organizing a rally and was initially held in a police precinct before being hospitalized with a stroke, according to OVD-Info. In St Petersburg, 42 of the individuals detained on Friday were sentenced by courts to serve jail terms ranging from one to six days, while nine others were fined.
In Moscow, at least six people were ordered to serve 15-day jail sentences, as reported by OVD-Info. Additionally, one person was imprisoned in the southern city of Krasnodar and two more in Bryansk, according to the rights group.
The news of Navalny’s death comes just a month before Russia’s presidential election, which is widely expected to grant President Vladimir Putin another six years in power.
Questions regarding the cause of Navalny’s death persist, and it remains uncertain when the authorities will release his body to his family. Navalny’s team declared on Saturday that the politician had been “murdered” and accused the authorities of intentionally delaying the release of his body.
Navalny’s mother and lawyers encountered conflicting information from various institutions they approached in their attempt to retrieve the body. “They’re leading us in circles and covering their tracks,” said Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, on Saturday.
Navalny’s closest ally and strategist, Leonid Volkov, stated on Sunday, “Everything in the colony is under surveillance. Every step he took was recorded from all angles over the years. Each employee had a video recorder. In two days, not a single video has been leaked or published. There is no room for uncertainty here.”
According to Yarmysh, a note given to Navalny’s mother stated that he died at 2:17 pm on Friday. When she arrived at the penal colony on Saturday, prison officials informed her that her son had succumbed to “sudden death syndrome,” as conveyed by Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia reported that Navalny fell ill and lost consciousness after a walk on Friday at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, located 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. Although an ambulance arrived, Navalny could not be revived. The cause of death is still under investigation, according to the service.
Navalny had been in custody since January 2021, having returned to Moscow after recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he attributed to the Kremlin. Since his arrest, he has received three prison sentences on charges he has vehemently denied as politically motivated.
Following the most recent verdict, which sentenced him to 19 years, Navalny remarked that he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of this regime.”
Shortly after news of Navalny’s death broke, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, made a dramatic appearance at the Munich Security Conference. She expressed uncertainty about the information provided by official Russian sources but warned that if the news was true, Putin and his associates would be held accountable for what they had done to the country, her family, and her husband.