Russian police have detained more than 100 people across the country at commemorations and rallies in memory of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who authorities say died in a remote penal colony.
On Saturday, protest monitoring group OVD-Info announced that more than 110 people had been arrested, including 64 in St. Petersburg.
Federal prison authorities announced that Navalny, 47, died on Friday after losing consciousness while walking in the Arctic penal colony Polar Wolf, where he was serving a 19-year sentence, sparking a stir among Navalny's supporters across the United States. Sadness and shock erupted. Condemnation from the world and world leaders.
As news of his death spread, spontaneous memorial services were held in several urban areas and people were detained in 13 cities, according to OVD-Info, which tracks political repression in Russia.
It added that 11 people were detained in the capital Moscow, and several others in the cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Tver.
Most of the hundreds of flowers and candles placed in Moscow on Friday for Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, were taken away overnight in black bags. Dozens of roses and carnations remained in the snow Saturday at the monument to victims of Soviet repression in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters on Lubyanka Square in central Moscow.
Videos and photos shared on Russian social media also showed flowers being removed from monuments commemorating victims of Soviet-era repression across the country.
Protests are illegal in Russia under strict anti-government laws, and authorities have cracked down particularly hard on rallies supporting Mr. Navalny.
Authorities in the capital said on Friday that they were aware of calls online to “participate in mass rallies in central Moscow” and warned people not to do so.
Flowers were also removed overnight from the bridge beside the Kremlin where opposition leader and former prime minister Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on February 27, 2015.
A makeshift vase containing white and red carnations was left behind along with a small piece of printed paper. “Boris Nemtsov was shot here in the back and killed,'' the note read.
On Saturday, police blocked access to a monument in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there and in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.
Videos shared on social media from Novosibirsk showed people sticking red flowers into the snow as police blocked access to the monument with tape.
President Putin's relationship with Western countries
Alexei Muravyev, a strategic studies professor at Curtin University, said Mr Navalny's death would have little impact on the outcome with less than a month to go before a presidential election that would see Mr Putin return to power for another six years. .
“Mr Navalny did not have much political influence in Russia. He had a large number of supporters, but compared to the overall proportion of conservative voters in Russia, they were a minority and now remain a minority,” Muravyev told Al Jazeera.
If anything, Muravyev added, this could harm the Russian president's attempts to re-establish dialogue with the West with a new focus on repressive regimes.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Navalny “bravely stood up against corruption, against violence, against all the evil that Putin's regime was doing,” adding: “President Putin is responsible for Mr. Navalny's death.” .
European Council President Charles Michel said Russian dissidents had “fighted for the values of freedom and democracy” and made the ultimate sacrifice.
“The EU holds the Russian regime solely responsible for this tragic death,” he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Saturday that Navalny's “heroic opposition to President Putin's repressive and unjust regime has inspired the world.”
“The Russian government is solely responsible for his treatment and death in prison,” Wong wrote on X.
The Kremlin has not commented on Navalny's death, but said the reaction from Western leaders was “absolutely unacceptable” and “hysterical.”
China's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Saturday, citing the matter as “Russia's internal affairs”, according to AFP news agency.
Navalny has been imprisoned since January 2021, but after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning, he returned to Moscow to face possible arrest on charges blaming the Kremlin. He was subsequently convicted three times, each time as politically motivated, and sentenced to 19 years in prison for extremism.
After his previous sentencing, Navalny said he “understands that he is serving a life sentence,” adding: “It will be measured by the length of my life or the longevity of this regime.” Stated.
Hours after news of Navalny's death was announced, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, addressed Germany's Munich Security Conference, which was packed with leaders.
“If this is true, I hold President Putin and those around him, his friends and his government accountable for what they have done to our country, my family and my husband. “I want them to know that they have a responsibility, and that day is coming soon,” she said.
Mr Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, was traveling with her lawyer to the prison colony where Mr Navalny died, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported on Saturday.