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Underneath a heavy police presence, lots of of individuals bid farewell to Alexei Navalny in Moscow following his still-unexplained dying two weeks in the past in an Arctic penal colony.
The funeral of Russian President Vladimir Putin's staunchest critic was held on Friday after a battle with authorities over the discharge of his physique.
Navalny's supporters mentioned a number of Moscow church buildings refused to carry providers for the person who fought in opposition to official corruption. Many Western leaders blame the Russian president for his dying, a cost the Kremlin rejects.
Navalny's workforce lastly acquired permission from the Church of the Icon of Our Woman Quench My Sorrows, which was surrounded by crowd-control boundaries on Friday. Hours earlier than the funeral was to start, lots of of individuals waited to enter below police surveillance.
Western diplomats have been seen in lengthy queues together with presidential candidates Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova. Each needed to run in opposition to Putin on this month's presidential election and oppose his conflict in Ukraine. None have been allowed on the poll.
After the hearse reached the church, the coffin was taken out of the automobile and the gang applauded and chanted: “Navalny! Navalny!” Some even shouted: “You weren’t afraid. Neither are we!”
A photograph contained in the church confirmed an open coffin with Navalny's physique coated in purple and white flowers along with his mom sitting beside him with a candle. Navalny's father was additionally in attendance, but it surely was not clear who else in his household attended.
His widow Yulia Navalnaya is outdoors Russia and didn’t attend the funeral. His daughter is a pupil at Stanford College in California, and his son's whereabouts are unknown.
All the politician's shut associates left Russia below strain and watched the funeral, footage of which was streamed dwell from overseas on his YouTube channel.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged folks gathering in Moscow and elsewhere to not break the regulation, saying any “unauthorized gathering” was a violation.
Buried on the close by Borisovsky cemetery, the place the police have been additionally current. After the funeral the gang marched from the church and chanted: “No to conflict” and “Love is extra highly effective than worry.”