At least 177 people detained across Russia at rallies prompted after Alexei Navalny' death

At least 177 people detained across Russia at rallies prompted after Alexei Navalny’ death

NEW DELHI: At least 177 people were detained in Russia on Saturday at events in memory of Alexei Navalny, who died while serving a three decade prison sentence.

According to the authorities, Navalny, Putin’s most formidable political opponent and a former lawyer, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony.

According to OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, more than 177 citizens across Russia were arrested at spontaneous rallies and vigils on Saturday.

99 people in St Petersburg and 11 in Moscow were detained, where most of Navalny’s urban and educated supporters were concentrated, OVD-Info reported.

“In each police department there may be more detainees than in the published lists,” OVD-Info said. “We publish only the names of those people about whom we have reliable knowledge and whose names we can publish.”

Individual arrests from smaller cities were also reported across Russia, From the border city of Belgorod, where seven were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Thursday, to Vorkuta, an Arctic mining outpost once a centre of the Stalin-era gulag labour camps.

The Russian authorities also took away the flowers and candles in Moscow overnight on Friday in black bags which were laid to honour Alexie Navalny’s memory. Russians paying their respects spoke of their despair and apathy after Navalny’s death.

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