A man holds flowers and a portrait of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the monument of victims of political repression in St. Petersburg.
Andrei Bok/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Russian
police have detained more than 100 people at spontaneous memorials for deceased
opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the OVD-Info rights group said Saturday.
The
47-year-old Kremlin critic was serving a 19-year prison sentence in the Arctic
when authorities announced his death, prompting grief among his supporters.
People
were seen gathering to place flowers at makeshift monuments across Russia late
Friday and, in some cases, were detained by police, social media footage
showed.
As
of 17 February, “more than 101 people” had already been detained in
10 cities, including 64 in Russia’s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg,
OVD-Info said.
Eleven
people were detained in the capital, Moscow, and multiple others in the cities
of Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Tver, it added.
People mourn at the monument graveyards of victims of political repression after the death of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny in St. Petersburg.
Protests
are illegal in Russia under strict anti-dissent laws, and authorities have
clamped down particularly harshly on rallies in support of Navalny.
Authorities
in the Russian capital said Friday they were aware of calls online “to
take part in a mass rally in the centre of Moscow” and warned people
against attending.
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