Moscow authorities refuse permission for rally in memory of Navalny and Nemtsov

Moscow’s City Hall has refused to grant permission for a rally to be held on Saturday in memory of murdered Russian opposition politicians Alexey Navalny and Boris Nemtsov, citing ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, according to one-time presidential hopeful Yekaterina Duntsova.

Duntsova, who made the application, published the response on her Telegram channel on Thursday, noting that Moscow’s Regional Security Department had permitted multiple other concerts and pro-government gatherings which also contravened Covid rules.

In November 2023, the demobilisation campaign group The Way Home had its application to hold a demonstration rejected on the same grounds.

In the absence of a memorial rally, Duntsova called on people to vote “for real elections, for a normal life” in the upcoming presidential elections. “If we can’t march, then we’ll meet at the polling stations!” Duntsova wrote.

The march would have come a day after Alexey Navalny’s funeral in Moscow on Friday. Team Navalny also said it had experienced official obstruction, reporting that no funeral home had yet agreed to transport the late opposition leader’s body to its burial place due to threats from “anonymous callers”.

The former head of Team Navalny, Leonid Volkov called the situation “pure madness”, while the former director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation Ivan Zhdanov called the debacle “a disgrace.”