Russian police on Tuesday cracked down on dissidents attending a vigil for Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader who died after his death. Uncertain situation In a Siberian prison in February.
Tuesday would have been Navalny’s 48th birthday.
From left, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s parents, Lyudmila Navalnaya and Anatoly Navalny, and Navalny’s mother-in-law, Alla Abrosimova, visit the grave of the late Russian opposition leader’s son on the 40th day after his death, in keeping with Russian Orthodox tradition, at the Borisovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Vitaly Smolnikov)
Moscow police Attacked A party hosted by presidential candidate Ekaterina Duntsova’s Dawn party on Tuesday was canceled because attendees had been watching a live broadcast of a tribute concert for Navalny in Berlin.
Ms Duntsova had sought to run in the March 2024 presidential elections on a platform of building a more “humane” and “peaceful” Russia, but Rejected She was ordered to suspend her campaign by the Central Election Commission of Russia for a variety of technical reasons, including alleged spelling mistakes on her paperwork, and after her appeal against this arbitrary decision was rejected by Russia’s Supreme Court, she founded her own political party and vowed to “win for the right to live without fear.”
The complaint that drew police to the Navalny concert viewing party was filed by a radical nationalist group called the Movement for the Liberation of Russia (SERB), where 30 people were detained, searched and eventually released.
In Moscow, other riot police attacked a man named Vladislav Malakhov as he held up a sign reading “Putin should be in jail” as he marched around a memorial to victims of Soviet political repression.
Malakhov said police punched and kicked him and threatened to send him to the front line in Ukraine, after which they forced him to make a video in which he said he was not satisfied with the police’s actions.
Malakhov was treated for a concussion at the scene and was charged with disobeying orders of security forces and violating the rules of a public event. Tightened Dictator Vladimir Putin is applying extreme pressure to prevent public discontent over the war in Ukraine.
Two women Detained Women were attacked as they tried to pay their respects to the late opposition leader at Moscow’s Borisov Cemetery, where Navalny is buried. Police claimed one of the attackers was holding some kind of “extremist symbol,” but witnesses said they saw nothing of the sort. The other woman was detained after asking police to stop harassing the first woman.
In this handout photo taken from video provided by Moscow City Court on Feb. 2, 2021, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands in the defendant’s cage and shows a heart symbol during a hearing at Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia. (Moscow City Court via The Associated Press)
On the same day, a similar incident occurred in Novosibirsk, Siberia. Two women Detained Because they were planning to lay flowers at a monument commemorating the victims of political repression.
The group of mourners managed to place Flowers On Tuesday, banners reading “Happy Birthday Hero!” were displayed around Navalny’s grave, along with photos of him embracing his wife, Yulia Navalnaya.
After her husband’s death, Navalnaya took over his activities. attended A memorial service for Mr. Navalny was held in Berlin on Tuesday, attended by several of Mr. Navalny’s closest aides, including his former spokesperson Kira Yarmysh and chief of staff Leonid Volkov. On Tuesday, Mr. Navalny thanked everyone who took the time to remember Alexei Navalny.
Dozens of people collected A demonstration was held outside the Russian embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, on Tuesday to remember Navalny and promise that resistance to corruption and authoritarianism would continue in his name. Some demonstrators held signs calling Putin a “killer,” including one accusing him of orchestrating Navalny’s assassination.
Police officers walk outside the Church of the Mother of God’s Healing of Sorrows after the funeral of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in Moscow’s Mariino district on March 1, 2024. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
“It is extremely important that Navalny’s name continues to be spoken, because every time it is mentioned it ensures that his legacy lives on. I think it bothers Putin every time his name is mentioned, which is why it’s all the more important,” said Vladimir Nechayev, an organiser of the demonstration in The Hague.
Another old friend of Navalny’s, Yevgeny Domozilov, organised the demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
Domozhilov said Navalny “meant a lot for my personal political life and for the political life of the country,” and identified himself as one of those who believes Navalny was killed by Putin’s regime.
“I knew him for 13 years and his murder was a great personal loss for me,” Domozilov said.
The rallies took place on both sides of a street known as “Avenue of Victims of Russian Aggression,” with demonstrators calling on local authorities to consider naming a street near the embassy after Navalny, cooperating by waving imitation road signs bearing the appropriate name in Dutch.
A petition in support of renaming a street after Navalny was circulated shortly after his death and has garnered more than 85,000 signatures to date. The petition has already been rejected by The Hague city authorities, because city rules state that a street can only be named after Navalny at least 10 years after his death.
Petition initiator Lissa Holman, a Dutch woman, said that as she left flowers and candles in memory of Navalny she realised “Russian people shouldn’t do this”.
“When they removed the candles and flowers and detained some people, I thought they wanted to erase him, that the Kremlin wanted us to forget his name,” she said.
