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At least 340 people have been arrested at memorial ceremonies in several cities since the death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. This is what human rights organization OVD Info says.
Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 8:27 PM
The death of Alexei Navalny has caused a lot of emotion among the population in Russia. Sympathizers take to the streets and create memorials. The police usually intervene quickly and arrested hundreds of people on Friday and Saturday.
According to the British news agency Reuters, this is the largest wave of arrests at political events since September 2022, when more than 1,300 people were arrested during demonstrations against a “partial mobilization” of reservists for the war in Ukraine.
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Human rights organization OVD Info reports arrests in 30 Russian cities. The most arrests took place in Saint Petersburg and Moscow on Saturday, with 74 and 49 citizens arrested respectively. In St. Petersburg, dozens of sympathizers and activists gathered on Saturday to lay flowers at a monument to victims of repression. Footage shows security forces pushing people to the ground in Moscow, close to a spot where mourners had left flowers and messages in memory of the opposition leader.
Hundreds of flowers and candles that were laid out in the Russian capital in honor of Navalny on Friday were largely removed by authorities overnight. The Russian police refuse to comment on the numbers of detainees mentioned by OVD Info.
Navalny (47) died on Friday in a prison camp in northern Russia. He served a thirty-year prison sentence there for founding an “extremist group”.
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