More Than 400 Detained in Russia Protesting Navalny’s Death

Russia has arrested at least 400 people across the country for protesting the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in a Russian penal colony when he died suddenly on Friday. Among those detained is a priest, Father Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, who was planning to lead a St. Petersberg memorial service in tribute to Navalny.

Human rights group OVD-Info said that by Saturday night, police had detained at least 401 people across the country. More than 200 of those arrests took place in St. Petersberg, Russia’s second largest city. Mikhnov-Vaitenko, the priest who was planning a memorial service for Navalny, was charged with organizing a rally. He was put in a holding cell but was moved to a hospital due to a stroke, according to OVD-Info.

“He didn’t die, he was killed,” a woman who laid flowers at Russia’s Wall of Grief, a memorial to those who were politically persecuted during Stalin’s rule, told The New York Times about Navalny’s death.

“They try to scare us so much that it is not possible to live,” Alla’s friend, Elena, said of the Russian government. Both declined to give their last name to the Times because they could face repercussions for speaking out.

St. Petersberg courts have ordered 43 people detained on Friday to serve between one and six days in jail. Nine others were fined, according to court officials, the Associated Press reported. Six people arrested in Moscow were sentenced to 15 days in jail, OVD-Info said.

The Russian prison service announced Navalny’s death on Friday, saying he was found dead in his cell in a remote prison in Western Siberia. He was 47. Navalny was serving a sentence after being charged with embezzlement and contempt of court. Human rights group Amnesty International called the charges and trial a “sham.”

“Aleksei Navalny was detained under politically-motivated charges and should never have been imprisoned in the first place,” Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said at the time of the closed-door trial.

The Russian government said Navalny suffered “sudden death syndrome,” but Navalny’s team claimed that he was “murdered.” They also accused the Russian government of intentionally delaying the release of his body.

“They’re driving us around in circles and covering their tracks,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Saturday, per the AP.

“Everything there is covered with cameras in the colony. Every step he took was filmed from all angles all these years. Each employee has a video recorder,” a close Navalny ally, Leonid Volkov, said Sunday according to the AP. “In two days, there has been not a single video leaked or published. There is no room for uncertainty here.”

Russian protest and performance art collective Pussy Riot held a demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Berlin in response to Navalny’s death. “We came with one simple word – ‘MURDERERS.’ He did not just die. He was murdered,” the group’s creator, Nadya Tolokonnikova, said of Navalny’s death in a statement on Sunday. “What we need to know about Putin is that he’s much more fragile than he seems. He is afraid of his opponents.”

Following his death, Navalny’s wife of 23 years, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke out at a security conference in Munich. “I want Putin, those around him, Putin’s friends, and his government to know they will be held responsible for what they have done to our country, my family, and my husband — and that day will come very soon,” she said.

Putin is up for re-election in a month and is expected to win another six years in power.