Lawyer for Navalny’s family detained by Russian police

A lawyer who helped the mother of a dead Russian activist get his body was arrested in Moscow on Tuesday. The lawyer, Vasily Dubkov, said he was let go later, but did not say why he was arrested. He said the Russian government made it hard for him to do his job.

As reported by LBC, The activist, Alexei Navalny, was a critic of President Vladimir Putin. He died in a prison in the Arctic earlier this month. His mother, Lyudmila, wanted to have a public funeral for him, but the government said no.

They said she had to agree to bury him secretly, or they would bury him in the prison.

Putin's spokesperson said the government did not have anything to do with Navalny's burial. Navalny's team said they could not find any place that would let them have a funeral for him. They said the government banned funeral agencies from working with them.

Navalny had been sick for a long time. He was poisoned with a chemical in 2020, and went to Germany for treatment. He came back to Russia in 2021, and was put in jail for breaking the rules of an old prison sentence.

He said the prison was torturing him, and his team said he was kept alone for most of the time. He died two days after his last isolation.

[With information sourced from LBC]