As a Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny was the fiercest opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today Navalny would have turned 48 years old.
On Alexei Navalny’s 48th birthday, his widow, friends and supporters remembered the deceased Kremlin critic with a memorial service in Berlin. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, thanked those gathered in St. Mary’s Church in Berlin-Mitte with a few brief words in Russian, but did not want to comment further.
For years, Navalny was the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was repeatedly imprisoned and subjected to trials. In 2020, Navalny survived poisoning with the chemical weapon Novichok. After treatment at the Charité hospital in Berlin, he returned to Russia in 2021 and was sent back to prison. On February 16, Navalny died under unclear circumstances in a Siberian penal camp.
Church service in Berlin’s Marienkirche
The Protestant Bishop Christian Stäblein said in his sermon in Berlin that they would have liked to celebrate Navalny’s birthday with him and sing him a birthday song. “I hope and trust that the heavenly choirs are doing this at this moment.”
The bishop recalled Navalny’s inflexibility and humor and his commitment to freedom and justice in Russia – despite torture, attempts at decomposition and poisoning. Every human being is given dignity at birth. “Nobody could take this dignity away from him,” said Stäblein. The trust remains that freedom and justice will prevail in the end.
Journalist Sabine Adler recalled how Navalny was arrested in 2018 because he wanted to run against President Putin. As a blogger, he uncovered corruption in Putin’s circle through investigative research. Navalny also went astray at times, for example when he felt attracted to nationalists and welcomed the annexation of Crimea, which belongs to Ukraine. But he managed to correct himself later. He unequivocally condemned the Russian war against Ukraine, said Adler.
Source: Stern
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