Xavier Colas Moscow

Moscow

Updated Friday, February 23, 2024-19:06

  • Obituary Alexei Navalny, struggle and martyrdom of the Russian who wanted "a normal country"

  • Dissidence Yulia Navalnaya wants to be the new Navalny

Russian authorities do not want a public funeral for Alexei Navalny, and are willing to steal the body from his family if necessary.

The team of the deceased leader of Russian dissidents, whose death has been a week since, denounces that an agent called Navalny's mother, Liudmila Navalnaya, on Friday and gave her an

ultimatum

: or accept a secret funeral in three hours without public farewell, or his son will be buried in his own prison.

Navalny's mother has refused to negotiate, pointing out that officials are not authorized to decide

how and where her son should be buried

.

The opponent's family demands that the law be followed, according to which investigators are obliged to deliver the body within two days of determining the cause of death.

According to the medical documents she signed, these two days expire on Saturday.

Amnesty International has said authorities should release Navalny's body and allow access for an

independent investigation

into the cause of his death.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin

's best-known political opponent

, died suddenly on Friday, February 16, in the Arctic prison where he was serving sentences totaling more than 30 years.

His 69-year-old mother has been demanding for days that authorities release his body for burial in a way that allows his friends, family and followers to pay their respects.

The Kremlin has said it had nothing to do with his death and that the circumstances are being investigated.

Both Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and the opposition's team denounce that it was the government that ordered his murder.

Liudmila Navalnaya insists that the authorities must allow the funeral to take place in accordance with normal practice.

The Russian authorities know that a public funeral would represent

a great demonstration of discontent with the Government

, something now prohibited.

Mass arrests

The human rights group OVD-Info estimates that more than 400 people were detained in the days after Navalny's death for trying to honor him in public.

Already in a 95-second video published on Thursday, Liudmila Navalnaya said that the authorities were trying to

"blackmail" the family

and threaten them into accepting a private burial: "I want you, for whom his death has been a personal tragedy, have the opportunity to say goodbye to him," he proclaimed, addressing Navalny's supporters in Russia.

Putin avoids mentioning Navalny's name every time and has not commented on the matter publicly since his death.

The regime hopes that that surname is buried as soon as possible.

He denies being involved, but avoids offering the clues contained in the corpse.

Tens of thousands of people have signed petitions demanding the handover of the opponent's body.

Navalny's adviser,

Ivan Zhdanov

, said Liudmila's lawyers had filed a legal complaint alleging "rape of the body of a deceased person."

Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich wrote: "I want to appeal not only to the Kremlin. I want to ask all people, all of us, to keep saying and repeating that they must return the body to their mother."

Navalny was jailed on charges he and his entourage consider false in January 2021, upon his return from Germany, where he was recovering from a

near-fatal

nerve agent poisoning in 2020 in Russia.

Once in prison, he was brought new charges and his illegal prison sentence was extended to 19 years.

"He was systematically denied adequate medical treatment and sent to punishment cells on 27 occasions for prolonged periods, more than 300 days in total, for alleged disciplinary infractions, such as having an unbuttoned button," denounces Amnesty International, for whom his conditions of detention "amounted to a violation of the rules prohibiting torture

or

other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."