At least 110 people were detained in different Russian cities during tributes to the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who died yesterday under suspicious circumstances in the IK-3 prison in Siberia, unleashing a new political crisis in the government of Vladimir Putin, which the West accuses of be behind the death of his main opponent.
The arrests, many of them just for putting flowers in squares to say goodbye to him, mostly occurred in Saint Petersburg, Putin's hometown, according to OVD-Info, an organization that ensures the rights of detained opponents.
There were also prisoners in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar and other cities in the European part of Russia and Siberia.
In addition, the Police collected the personal data of all participants in these events, including the reporters who came to cover them.
Russian police detain a man who wanted to lay flowers at a Navalny memorial.
AP Photo.
Those arrested in the marches in tribute to Navalny.
(AP Photo)
Since Friday, law enforcement and country agents have been trying to remove all memorials created by Navalny's supporters, both in monuments to the victims of political repression and in improvised places.
This happened, according to local Telegram channels, in front of the Kremlin on the bridge where opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was murdered in 2015.
According to the local press, numerous people have paid tribute to the opposition leader since the day before by placing flowers or placing candles in designated places in their cities.
Thousands of Russians in exile took to the streets to protest what they consider a murder commissioned by the Kremlin and called for more actions in European, American and Latin American cities on Saturday.
Navalny, 47, died suddenly on Friday in the Arctic prison where he had been since last December, according to the Russian prison services.
The opposition and the independent Russian press, and the Western foreign ministries in unison accused Putin of ordering the assassination of Navalny, the Kremlin's number one enemy for 15 years.
There were protests accusing Putin of murder around the world.
In the image, the mobilization at the door of the Russian consulate in Poland.
Photo Reuters.
Navalny, who was serving a sentence of almost 30 years in prison, was transferred to an Arctic prison in December after announcing a campaign against Putin's re-election in the March presidential elections.
Presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov considered "unacceptable" the accusations made by the West before the results of the autopsy are known.
"Putin killed him," Navalny's team said after his mother's visit to prison
A woman wearing a mask believed to be Alexei Navalny's mother after leaving the prison where Putin's opponent died.
Photo Reuters.
The mother of the deceased Russian opponent, Alexei Navalny, today visited the Arctic prison where her son suddenly died on Friday, amid accusations against the Kremlin of murder.
As reported by Radio Liberty, Lyudmila Navalnaya flew this morning from Moscow to the city of Salekhard, in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district.
Next, the mother traveled by car to the town of Jarp, where the IK-3 prison is located, to which her son was transferred last December.
Liudmila Naválnaya, who assured that she does not want to receive condolences, met with the opponent in that same place on February 12.
"He was healthy and happy to be alive," the politician's mother wrote on Facebook on Friday.
"Putin killed him
," denounced the team of the deceased Russian opponent, Alexei Navalny, after his mother's visit to receive the death certificate from prison officials.
Source: EFE