After an unconscionable 8 day delay by Russian authorities in releasing the body of Alexei Navalny, his mother and supporters will be able to give him a funeral this Friday in a Moscow suburb, according to spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. Even in Navalny's death, Putin's thuggish regime is still putting up obstacles against him:
"Few details have been released on the cause of his death, and Russian authorities initially refused to hand Navalny's body over to his mother Lyudmila. They finally relented eight days after he died.
On Tuesday, Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said his team were struggling to find somewhere to hold the ceremony - some funeral homes had claimed they were fully booked, she said, while others had refused when they found out who the event was for.
'One place told us that funeral agencies were forbidden from working with us,' Ms Yarmysh posted on social media. [snip]
Navalny's team had originally wanted to hold the funeral on 29 February, but 'it quickly became clear that there was not a single person around who could dig a grave on that day', Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on X.
He implied that the reason for this was because Mr Putin is due to make a major speech on the same day.
'The Kremlin understands that nobody will care for Putin and his address on the day of Alexei's farewell,' Mr Zhdanov wrote." (our emphasis)
The fear of war criminal dictator Putin for Navalny and the movement for democracy now headed by his widow Yulia Navalnaya is palpable, using his security forces to arrest hundreds of mourners and to remove any makeshift memorials to him. Attendees at the funeral risk arrest by Putin's security forces, or harassment at the very least, and Navalnaya cannot risk arrest by returning to Russia.
BONUS: Navalnaya spoke to the European Parliament earlier today and urged them to defeat Putin.
(photo: Makeshift memorial in St. Petersburg. Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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