Navalny's team has trouble finding site for memorial service

Alexei Navalny's associates said on Tuesday that their plan to a hold a public memorial to Russia's most well-known opposition figure was being thwarted by the authorities.

Funeral parlours and public event halls that could presumably help stage the ceremony this week have all said they are booked or, in some cases, declined as soon as Navalny's name was mentioned, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.

"Since yesterday we have been looking for a place where we can organize a farewell event for Alexei. We have called most of the private and public funeral agencies, commercial venues and funeral halls," she wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

"Some of them say the place is fully booked. Some refuse when we mention the surname 'Navalny.' In one place, we were told that the funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us."

Russian authorities say the anti-corruption crusader and fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin died on February 16 while serving a long prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony.

While the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear, Western governments said they hold Putin responsible.

Navalny, weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said by Russia to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him.

According to Navalny's team, the death certificate mentions "natural" causes. The politician was 47 years old at the time of his death.

His body was kept under lock and key for more than a week.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, Navalny's mother, has accused Russian authorities of having tried to pressure her to bury her son in secret, which she refused to do.

In the days since Navalny's death, hundreds of people have been detained while publicly expressing their grief and laying flowers at makeshift memorial sites.