(Moscow) The team of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, who died on February 16 in his Arctic prison, said Thursday that funeral services were refusing to take his remains to the church where his funeral is planned Friday in Moscow.
“It’s a real shame. The hearse drivers are now refusing to take Alexei from the morgue,” Ivan Zhdanov, one of the deceased opponent’s close collaborators, lamented on Telegram.
“First, we were not allowed to rent a funeral home to say goodbye to Alexei. And now when the funeral service is supposed to take place at the church, the funeral agents inform us that no hearse will take the body there,” his team confirmed on social media.
According to her, the funeral teams “receive calls from unknown people threatening them not to take Alexei’s body anywhere.”
The funeral of the opponent and anti-corruption activist is to take place on Friday at 2 p.m. in a church in the southeast of Moscow, the Russian capital, in the district where Alexeï Navalny lived when he was at liberty. He was to be buried two hours later at the nearby Borissovo cemetery.
PHOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS
A crane unloads a police barrier at the Church of Our Lady “Relieve My Sorrow” icon, where Navalny’s funeral will take place.
Since the handover of Alexei Navalny’s body to his mother last Saturday, the team of the opponent who died at the age of 47 had been looking for a place for a “public farewell”, but found themselves “rejected” any request. She accuses the authorities of putting pressure on the managers.
On Thursday, his team called on Muscovites to come to the opponent’s funeral and for his supporters in other cities and abroad to gather to honor his memory.
These gatherings could be embarrassing for the Russian authorities two weeks before the presidential election which should see Vladimir Putin re-elected without opposition. Nearly 400 people were arrested in the days following the death of the opponent for having publicly honored his memory, according to the specialized NGO OVD-Info.