Russian judicial authorities have handed down brief prison terms to numerous individuals apprehended during gatherings honoring Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of the Kremlin, as indicated by official court declarations, with Saint Petersburg accounting for 154 of the sentences.
Records released by the city’s court service over the weekend disclosed that 154 individuals had been sentenced to jail terms of no more than 14 days for breaching Russia’s stringent anti-protest legislation.
In other cities across the nation, rights advocates and independent media entities brought attention to a handful of parallel sentences.
The 47-year-old Kremlin critic met his demise on Friday at the Arctic penitentiary where he was held on charges widely regarded as payback for his advocacy against President Vladimir Putin.
Hundreds of Russians were apprehended by police over the weekend in multiple cities as they assembled to honor the memory of victims of Stalin-era repressions, laying flowers and lighting candles at memorials.
Read also: ‘Putin Is Responsible’, Biden Reacts To Navalny’s Death
Under strict military censorship regulations and laws against unauthorized gatherings, any form of anti-Kremlin protests or public demonstrations of opposition to the regime are effectively banned in Russia.
Police and plainclothes personnel were seen patrolling sites across dozens of Russian cities over the weekend where people had gathered to pay tribute to Navalny.
There were several accounts of authorities clearing makeshift memorials overnight, and video footage captured hooded individuals gathering flowers into bin bags on a bridge near the Kremlin, the same spot where Boris Nemtsov, another prominent Putin critic, was assassinated in 2015.
Navalny’s death, just a month before Putin’s expected re-election for another six-year term in the Kremlin, evoked a strong emotional response from his supporters, both in Russia and abroad.
As of Sunday, Russian authorities had yet to grant Navalny’s mother or legal representatives access to his body, further fueling the outrage of his supporters. Earlier, these supporters had condemned the Russian state as “killers” attempting to “conceal their actions.
Putin has remained silent regarding the demise of his most outspoken critic, and the Kremlin has refrained from making any statements since Friday evening, when it rebuked Western leaders for holding Putin accountable.
Even on Sunday, tributes to Navalny poured in, acknowledging his remarkable resilience following a near-fatal poisoning in 2020 and his courageous decision to return to Russia despite the imminent threat of imprisonment.
‘Alexei Navalny wanted one very simple thing: for his beloved Russia to be just a normal country,’ Leonid Volkov, his chief of staff and one of his closest aides wrote on the X social media site.
‘And for this Vladimir Putin killed him. Poisoned, imprisoned, tortured and killed him.’