Kremlin is trying to derail Navalny's burial, allies say

Plans to hold a funeral for Alexei Navalny on Thursday have been thwarted because it would clash with an address by President Vladimir Putin, according to the former opposition activist’s foundation.

Plans to hold a funeral for Alexei Navalny on Thursday have been thwarted because it would clash with an address by President Vladimir Putin, according to the former opposition activist’s foundation.

Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in a statement Wednesday that the team had struggled to find a venue for the funeral and was blocked from hiring a hall so people could pay their respects to the popular anti-corruption campaigner. Navalny’s team encouraged people to do so anyway, despite not having a central venue.

Russia, which has become increasingly repressive under Putin’s rule, suppressing free speech and political opposition, already faces a surge of support for Navalny since he died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16 at age 47. 

Tributes to Alexei Navalny are laid in Amsterdam this week.Paulo Amorim / Sipa USA via APHundreds were arrested after his death as people with flowers and candles streamed to ad hoc memorials, as well as monuments to other victims of political repression, rights groups said. And campaigners say the Russian government is eager to limit further dissent in his name.

“I am not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or the police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband,” Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/navalny-burial-funeral-kremlin-tries-thwart-rcna140874

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