02/24/2024 – 17:08
Russian dissident died in Arctic penal colony last week. Family accuses Putin's regime of pushing for a secret funeral. Russian authorities handed over the body of opposition politician Alexei Navalny to his mother, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, reported on the X network (formerly Twitter) this Saturday (24/02) .
Navalny's relatives and his team had been pleading with Russian authorities for days to release the dissident's body following his death, aged 47, in a Siberian penal colony last week under unclear circumstances.
“Alexei's body was handed over to his mother. Many thanks to all those who demanded this from us,” said Yarmysh. Navalny's mother, who traveled to the prison in Russia's far north where her son was held, was still in the nearby city of Salekhard, the spokeswoman added.
“The funeral is still pending. We don't know if the authorities will interfere to make it happen as the family wants and as Alexei deserves. We will inform you as soon as there is news.”
The death of Russia's best-known activist in prison sparked international outrage from Western leaders who considered him a political prisoner of Vladimir Putin's regime.
Some Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have blamed Putin for Navalny's death.
“Explicit Satanism”
Previously, Navalny's widow and daughter had directly appealed to the Kremlin leader to release Navalny's body for burial. In a video message published on Saturday, Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said Putin, who describes himself as a devout Christian, was mocking the deceased's remains and demonstrating “explicit Satanism.”
“Hand over Alexei,” she said in the video. “They tortured him alive and continue to torture him dead. They are violating all human and divine laws.” Navalny's daughter Dasha also called for the release of her father's body. In a post published on X, she wrote: “Give my father’s body to grandma.” Her grandmother Lyudmila Navalnaya stated in a video on Thursday that Putin's authorities wanted to force her to hold a secret funeral and threatened to rape her body.
According to Yulia Navalnaya, Putin's attitude seemed driven by hatred and the desire for revenge. “No, it’s not even hate, it’s Satanism, paganism.” Faith, she said, is about kindness, about mercy, about redemption. “And no real Christian could ever do what Putin is doing now to the late Alexei.”
In the video, Navalnaya, 47, condemned Putin's war against Ukraine and said he had turned the Russian Orthodox Church into an arm of the regime. “They are simply killing, bombing sleeping civilians at night with missiles that have been blessed by the church,” Navalnaya said. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Cyril, is close to Putin and an ardent supporter of the war against Ukraine. Russian clerics often bless missiles in public ceremonies.
Under Cyril, the leadership of the Orthodox Church with Putin deepened the promotion of an ideology that fuses respect for Russia's tsarist and Orthodox past with a reverence for the Soviet victory over Nazism. In 2022, in a critical tone, Catholic Pope Francis even stated that Cyril could not continue acting like “Putin’s altar boy.”
jps (dpa, ots)
#Alexei #Navalny39s #body #handed #mother