Over 100 people were arrested yesterday during demonstrations in memory of Aleksei Navalny, the Russian opponent who died while detained in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic. These are the numbers provided by the Ovd-Info organization, specifying that there were arrests in eight cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Tver, Taganrog, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov on Don and Murmansk.
So far “over 101 people” have been arrested in 10 cities in Russia, including 64 in St. Petersburg, Ovd-Info reported. Eleven people were arrested in the capital and many more in the cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Tver.
Protests are illegal in Russia and authorities have cracked down particularly harshly on demonstrations in support of Navalny. Already yesterday, the authorities had reported that they were aware of online calls “to take part in a mass demonstration in central Moscow” and had warned people against taking part.
15 arrests in Moscow during memorial demonstration
Around fifteen people were arrested by Russian police today during a demonstration in Moscow in memory of oppositionist Alexei Navalny, Russian independent media outlet Sota reported. According to videos broadcast on the media’s Telegram account, police officers, with their faces covered, stopped protesters who came to lay flowers on a monument in memory of the victims of Soviet political repression in the center of the Russian capital.
Flowers removed from memorials
Flowers left by protesters in several Russian cities to commemorate the death of oppositionist Aleksei Navalny were removed overnight by groups of unknown individuals as police looked on. Videos posted on social media show this. In Moscow, a large group of flowers was removed from a memorial near the intelligence headquarters, but more appeared in the morning.