Chilling claims from Navalny's mother: 'They are blackmailing me with his funeral'
Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of Alexei Navalny, who died under suspicious circumstances in prison recently, released a statement on her son's YouTube channel, alleging that state officials are threatening her to hold a secret funeral.
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Lyudmila Navalnaya’s video, uploaded to her son’s YouTube channel, has caused a stir worldwide. According to Navalnaya’s claims, Russian authorities are pressuring her regarding her son’s funeral. State officials, who do not want the funeral to turn into an ‘opposition demonstration,’ are, according to Navalnaya’s account, openly threatening her to have her son buried in a secret ceremony.
In the video uploaded to YouTube, Navalnaya claims that officials told her she ‘does not have much time to decide’ and that ‘her son’s body is starting to decompose.’
Navalnaya says, “Looking me in the eyes, they said that if I did not do what they said, they would do something to my son’s body.”
Alexei Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh had stated to the press last Wednesday that authorities had made Lyudmila Navalnaya sign a document ‘accepting that her son died of natural causes.’ Navalnaya confirmed in the YouTube video that she had signed the document. Russian state officials had previously announced that they would hold Navalny's body for two weeks to conduct chemical examinations. If the claim is true, the authorities made Navalnaya sign such a document before the two-week examination period was completed.
Navalnaya said that the authorities made her sign the document after showing her her son’s body.
Expressing her fear that she would not be able to receive her son’s body if she did not sign the document, Navalnaya says that according to Russian law, her son’s body should be handed over to her.
In the video she uploaded, Alexei Navalny’s mother also insists that the funeral should not be held in secret, but rather in a ceremony that his loved ones can attend.
According to a report by The Moscow Times citing its sources in the Kremlin, authorities are ‘evaluating different options’ to ensure the funeral does not lead to political protests. According to an unnamed source, holding the burial after the elections is also being considered among the options.