Alexei Navalny: Police in Russia crack down on protests as human rights group claims ‘at least 100 arrested’
Police in Russia have cracked down on people gathered to mark the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny – with one human rights group claiming that at least 100 people have been arrested.
Footage and pictures from Russia’s two largest cities – Moscow and St Petersburg – showed officers ripping away placards from protesters and dragging others away from makeshift memorials to Mr Navalny.
Journalists at the site in Moscow – set up at a monument to victims of Soviet repression – were also filmed being detained.
One woman at the site told Sky News: “All that is happening over these years, on the territory of my beloved country, is a disgrace.”
Another added: “I am furious, of course. They have finally killed him.”
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‘I’m ashamed of my country’
According to the Russian human rights group, OVD-info, at least 100 people have been arrested across eight cities, including Moscow, St Petersburg and Krasnodar, during gatherings to mark Mr Navalny’s death.
Though police have not given any details on arrests, prosecutors have warned Russians against participating in any mass protest in Moscow.
It comes after jailed dissident Mr Navalny, a chief critic of President Vladimir Putin who had campaigned against official corruption and led major anti-Kremlin protests, was confirmed dead by prison authorities in Russia on Friday, at the age of 47.
A woman who laid flowers for Alexei Navalny is detained in St Petersburg. Pic: AP
Police officers detain a woman at the site in St Petersburg. Pic: AP
Police take a sign off a protester in Moscow. Pic: AP
Protests across Europe
Protests were also held outside of Russia, including in London, where people carrying pictures of Mr Navalny’s face demonstrated outside the Russian embassy near Notting Hill.
One man at the protest, who did not wish to be named, said: “I want Russia to be a country that is respected all over the world.
“I want to love my flag. But today it’s not possible because the flag represents the war.”
Alexei Navalny appears via a video link from the Arctic penal colony where he was being held prior to his death. Pic: AP
Alexei Navalny, pictured in court in 2021.
Pic: AP
In Berlin, hundreds gathered near the Russian embassy chanting in a mixture of Russian, German and English, including “Putin to the Hague”.
In Lithuania, formerly run from Moscow but now a member of NATO and the European Union, mourners placed flowers and candles by a portrait of Mr Navalny.
“He was always with us, so it is all surreal,” said Lyusya Shtein, 26, a Pussy Riot activist who has lived in Vilnius since leaving Russia in 2022.
Groups also gathered in cities including Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Sofia, Geneva, and The Hague, among others.
Protesters have gathered outside the Russian embassy in London after the death of Alexei Navalny.
Protests have also taken place in Berlin, Germany. Pic: AP
A person places a candle at a makeshift memorial for Alexei Navalny in Montreal, Canada. Pic: AP
World leaders react
World leaders, meanwhile, reacted to the news of Mr Navalny’s death, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy firmly pointing the blame on Mr Putin.
“It is obvious that he was killed by Putin,” he said during a visit to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
“Putin doesn’t care who dies – only for him to hold his position. This is why he must hold onto nothing. Putin must lose everything and be held responsible for his deeds,” he added.
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Journalists arrested after Navalny death
US President Joe Biden said Washington does not know exactly what happened, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country temporarily took in Mr Navalny in 2020 after he was poisoned with a nerve agent, praised the Kremlin critic’s bravery and said his death makes clear “what kind of regime this is [In Russia]”.
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Speaking at the security conference in Munich, his wife Yulia Navalnaya, said: “For many years we cannot trust Putin and the Putin government. They always lie.
“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family. And this day will come very soon.
“I want to call on the international community and all people to unite and defeat this evil.”
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‘Navalny’s courage will not be forgotten’
UK summons Russian ambassador
The UK’s foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, said Mr Putin must be held accountable and said there should be “consequences” for the Russian president.
Foreign Office officials have summoned the Russian ambassador to “make clear that we hold the Russian authorities fully responsible”.
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Mr Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle at the time of his death.
He had been behind bars since he returned from Germany in January 2021, serving time on various charges that he rejected as a politically motivated effort to keep him imprisoned for life.
Russian prison authorities said Mr Navalny had felt unwell following a walk on Friday and lost consciousness.
Efforts by medical staff to revive him failed, according to the service.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
World
UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.
An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.
They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.
Police at the scene. Pic: AP
Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.
A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.
Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.
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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.
Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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