More than 400 people were detained in Russia during tributes to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a remote Arctic penal colony, a prominent human rights group said.
The sudden death of Navalny (47) was a heavy blow for many Russians, who placed their hopes for the future on the fiercest enemy of President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin, even after surviving nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.
News of his death reverberated around the world, and hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities arrived at ad hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repression with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay their respects.
In more than ten cities, the police detained 401 people by Saturday evening, according to the human rights group OVD-Info, which monitors political arrests and provides legal assistance.
More than 200 arrests were made in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the group said.
Among those detained was Grigory Miknov-Voytenko, a priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church – a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church – who announced plans to hold a memorial service for Navalny on social media. He was arrested on Saturday morning in front of his house. He was accused of organizing a meeting and placed in a cell at the police station, but was later hospitalized with a stroke, OVD-Info reported.
