Alexei’s funeral will be held on March 1 at the Church of Our Lady of God Eliminate My Sorrows in Marino (Archives)
Warsaw, Poland:
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s funeral will be held on Friday at a church south of Moscow, his allies said.
More than a week after his death in an Arctic prison, authorities finally handed Navalny’s body to his mother on Saturday, in what his allies said was an attempt to prevent a public burial.
“Alexei’s funeral will be held on March 1 at 14:00 (1100 GMT) at the ‘Mother of God Takes My Sorrows Away’ church in Marino. Please attend in advance,” they said in a social media post on Wednesday expressed in.
His funeral will be held at the nearby Borisov Cemetery, they said.
His team said it was difficult to find churches willing to host the service.
“We started looking for churches and halls for March 1. Everywhere we were refused anything. In some places we were told it was forbidden,” said exiled ally Ivan Zhdanov.
“We don’t care about the news. Alexei needs to be buried… In order to have a chance to say goodbye, it’s better to come early,” he added.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critic, died on February 16 in one of Russia’s toughest prisons in northern Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as targeting his opposition. Political revenge.
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