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Hundreds Attend Moscow Funeral of Pro-war Blogger

Pallbearers carry a picture and the coffin with the body of Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, during a farewell ceremony at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, Russia, 08 March 2023. (EPA)
Pallbearers carry a picture and the coffin with the body of Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, during a farewell ceremony at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, Russia, 08 March 2023. (EPA)
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Hundreds Attend Moscow Funeral of Pro-war Blogger

Pallbearers carry a picture and the coffin with the body of Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, during a farewell ceremony at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, Russia, 08 March 2023. (EPA)
Pallbearers carry a picture and the coffin with the body of Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, during a farewell ceremony at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, Russia, 08 March 2023. (EPA)

Hundreds of mourners, including the leader of Russia's Wagner private militia group, attended the funeral on Saturday of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed on April 2 in a cafe bomb blast that Moscow has blamed on Ukraine.

Russia charged Darya Trepova, 26, on Tuesday with terrorist offenses over the killing of Tatarsky in the St Petersburg cafe where he had been due to talk. She was remanded in custody and could face up to 20 years in jail.

The 40-year-old Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was accorded military honors including a gun salute and an army band at the funeral at Moscow's Troyekurovskoye cemetery due to his past participation in military operations in eastern Ukraine alongside Moscow-backed separatists battling Kyiv's forces.

Tatarsky was among the best-known members of an influential group of bloggers who have provided a running commentary on the fighting in Ukraine. He was often scathing about Russia's defense establishment but strongly backed Moscow's actions in Ukraine and said they should be pursued more aggressively.

"Vladlen has proven that today the front line passes everywhere: in the zone of military action, in the rear, and in cities, hearts and minds," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the Telegram messaging app, noting he had died "in the center of peaceful St Petersburg at terrorists' hands".

Tatarsky made extensive reporting trips to the front lines in Ukraine and had ties to Wagner group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who on Saturday thanked the blogger on behalf of his fighters.

"Vladlen Tatarsky did a lot so that we could move towards victory and destroy the enemy," Prigozhin's press service quoted him as saying. "He is a soldier who will stay with us, whose voice will live on forever ..."

Prigozhin is also known for his sharp criticism of Russia's top brass over their performance in Ukraine. The Wagner group has been spearheading efforts in recent months to capture the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

Ukraine has not taken responsibility for the cafe bomb blast and instead blamed "domestic terrorism" in Russia.

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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."