Foreign

Navalny Buried In Moscow Amid Thousands Of Defiant Mourners

Published

5 months ago

March 2, 2024

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest in Moscow on Friday, surrounded by crowds of defiant mourners who chanted his name and blamed authorities for his death in prison.

Outside the cemetery where he was buried, some supporters shouted in grief, while others yelled out slogans against the Kremlin and its offensive in Ukraine.

Despite a heavy police presence and official warnings, thousands of mourners paid their respects to the 47-year-old anti-corruption campaigner whose death in an Arctic prison was announced on February 16.

People come to a makeshift memorial for late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny organized outside the former Russian Embassy in Tbilisi to honour his memory on March 1, 2024. (Photo by Vano SHLAMOV / AFP)
Navalny’s death has been widely condemned by Western leaders and his allies have accused President Vladimir Putin of responsibility and of trying to prevent a dignified public burial.

The Kremlin, which has dismissed the accusations as “hysterical”, warned against “unauthorised” protests around the funeral.

Navalny’s body first lay in an open casket in a packed church in Maryino, southern Moscow, for a ceremony attended by his parents.

The coffin was closed immediately after the service, meaning many mourners who had wanted to file past were not able to pay their last respects at the Mother of God Quench My Sorrows church.

It was then transported to the Borisovo cemetery, near the banks of the Moskva River, where several large wreaths were arranged around the grave.

“We won’t forget you!”, “Forgive us!” some mourners shouted as the coffin arrived.

‘What are they afraid of?’

“No to war!” some chanted. Others yelled out: “Down with the power of murderers!” and “We will not forgive!”.

Many opponents blame Putin for the death of his top critic.

Police detained some six people in the capital and dozens elsewhere in Russia, according to the OVD-Info rights group.

“Any unauthorised gatherings will be in violation of the law and those who participate in them will be held responsible,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to TASS news agency.

“What are they afraid of? Why so many cars?” one mourner, Anna Stepanova, told AFP outside the church.

“The people who came here, they are not scared. Alexei wasn’t either.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the thousands who turned out as “courageous”.

The French, German and US ambassadors were seen among mourners outside the church, as were some of Russia’s last free independent politicians.

Music from “Terminator 2” — Navalny’s favourite film — was played as the coffin was lowered, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.

‘Nothing to say’

The dissident’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, who did not attend, paid tribute to her husband on social media.

“I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try my best to make you up there happy for me and proud of me. I don’t know if I’ll make it or not, but I’ll try,” she said.

“I love you forever. Rest in peace,” she wrote.

Navalnaya has also blamed Putin for her husband’s death.

Putin’s spokesman Peskov has criticised the accusations made by her and some Western leaders as “vulgar”.

As the funeral went ahead, Peskov said he had “nothing to say” to the family of the deceased.

Navalny shot to prominence through his anti-corruption campaigning, exposing what he said was rampant graft at the top of Putin’s administration.

Some mourners mentioned the huge influence Navalny had on their own activism.

“Because of him I began to get involved in politics… He was the first public person that I listened to,” said 26-year-old Denis, a volunteer at a charity.

Navalny was arrested in January 2021 when he returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for a poisoning attack.

“Alexei was tortured for three years,” Navalnaya told lawmakers in Brussels.

“He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls, and then even letters.”

“And then they killed him. Even after that, they abused his body,” she said.

‘Ideas will live on’

His body was held for eight days before being returned to the family, which Navalny’s team believed to be a bid to cover up responsibility for his death.

His family and his team have also accused authorities of trying to prevent a dignified public burial, fearing it could turn into a flashpoint for dissent.

Navalny’s team said local investigators had threatened to bury him on the prison grounds if his mother did not agree to a “secret” funeral.

Once the body was released, allies struggled to find a place to hold a funeral ceremony and even hearse drivers.

A civil ceremony allowing the general public to pay their respects to the body — common in Russia — was not allowed.

Navalnaya has vowed to continue his life’s work and urged to “fight more desperately, more fiercely than before.”

In the crowd near the church, some seemed to agree.

“A person has died, but his ideas will live on thanks to those who have gathered here,” said Alyona, a 22-year-old archaeologist who came to pay her respects.

AFP

Foreign

Ethiopia declares three-day mourning as landslide kills 250

Published

4 hours ago

July 27, 2024

Admin

Ethiopia announced on Friday three days of mourning following a devastating landslide in a southern remote part of the country where more than 250 people lost their lives.

Rescuers are continuing the grim search for bodies in the tiny locality of Kencho Shacha Gozdi, while distraught survivors bury those who perished in the disaster, the deadliest landslide on record in the Horn of Africa nation.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA, citing local authorities, said on Thursday that 257 people have died and warned the toll could reach 500.

“The House of Peoples’ Representatives has announced a three-day national mourning for the people who lost their lives in the landslide accident,” Ethiopia’s parliament said, adding that it would start from Saturday.

The period of remembrance would allow “comfort to their relatives and all the people of our country,” added the statement, shared by the state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission said earlier Friday that humanitarian aid and rehabilitation was “well under way” in the region.

It said a “structure for emergency disaster response coordination and integration” had been established, putting the number of people needing to be relocated at 6,000.

OCHA had said more than 15,000 people need to be evacuated because of the risk of further landslides, including small children and thousands of pregnant women or new mothers.

Aid had begun arriving, it said, including four trucks from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society.

Officials said most of the victims were buried when they rushed to help after a first landslide, which followed heavy rains Sunday in the area that lies about 480 kilometres (300 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa.

International offers of condolences have flooded in, including from the African Union, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and World Health

Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian.

Africa’s second most populous nation is often afflicted by climate-related disasters and more than 21 million people or about 18 percent of the population rely on humanitarian aid as a result of conflict, flooding or drought.

AFP.

Foreign

Trump kicks against Harris taking over Biden campaign funds

Published

2 days ago

July 25, 2024

Admin

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign, on Tuesday, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, saying that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris could not legally take over funds raised by President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Biden, an 81-year-old Democrat who was in a tight race with Republican challenger Donald Trump, endorsed Harris when he ended his reelection bid on Sunday.

Harris quickly took control of Biden’s campaign accounts and on Monday night wrapped up the nomination by winning pledges from a majority of the delegates who at next month’s party convention will determine the nominee, according to her campaign.

The fight over the accounts, which had roughly $95 million in the bank at the end of June, is part of a multi-pronged effort by Republicans to stymie Harris’ bid to lead the Democratic ticket.

The Trump campaign argued that Harris undertook a “brazen money grab,” according to the filing by David Warrington, the campaign’s general counsel. In the filing, which Reuters said it saw, Warrington said Harris was in the process of committing what he described as the “the largest campaign finance violation in American history.”

Saurav Ghosh, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan watchdog group, has said that because Harris was already part of “Biden for President” as the vice presidential candidate, her claim on the money should be secure.

In any case, election regulators are unlikely to resolve the issue before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The FEC said they were unable to comment on unresolved enforcement matters.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her argument against Donald Trump at the first rally of her presidential campaign on Tuesday, while a new poll showed her with a slight lead over her Republican rival.

Harris’ campaign has said it had raised $100 million since Sunday, when Biden stepped back from the campaign and endorsed her – exceeding Biden’s remaining tally in just a few days. Her campaign brushed off the FEC complaint.

“Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election,” said Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak.

Foreign

Sierra Leone Court Sentences 11 Soldiers, Policemen For Failed Military Coup

Published

2 days ago

July 25, 2024

Admin

Two female police officers were also sentenced. Ramatu Kamanda Conteh received a 30-year sentence for harboring Koita.

Ahigh court in Sierra Leone has sentenced 11 people, including soldiers and police officers, to lengthy prison terms for their role in a failed military coup attempt last year.

The court’s verdict follows an attack on November 26, 2023, when gunmen targeted multiple military barracks and a prison, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing over 20 people.

Reuters reports that, after the failed coup attempt, 12 people were charged with treason in January.

However, on Monday, 11 people were convicted in a unanimous jury verdict on 20 counts, including treason, murder, and unauthorized use of military uniforms.

The twelfth accused, Bai Mahmoud Bangura of the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party, is being tried separately due to health concerns.

Amadu Koita Makalo, a retired army major and former bodyguard to ex-president Ernest Bai Koroma, was sentenced to multiple terms totaling 40 to 70 years in prison, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

Two female police officers were also sentenced. Ramatu Kamanda Conteh received a 30-year sentence for harboring Koita.

The government said the coup bid was led mostly by bodyguards to Koroma, who was later charged with four related offences, before the government decided to let him leave the country on medical grounds.

However, Koroma condemned the coup attempt and his lawyers called the charges “trumped up” and part of a “political vendetta”.

Tensions have resurfaced in Sierra Leone, nearly two decades after the civil war from 1991 to 2002 that claimed over 50,000 lives.