X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has explained why Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, had her account temporarily suspended.
Navalnaya’s account, which has garnered over 187,000 followers since she joined Monday, was reinstated after being blocked for about 30 minutes on Tuesday.
“Our platform’s defence mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules,” the company said in a statement posted on its safety account. “We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defence.”
Navalnaya joined X three days after Navalny’s death in a Russian penal colony near the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence. The country’s prison service claimed Navalny, 47, fell unresponsive after feeling unwell during a walk, adding that emergency services did not manage to revive him.
HuffPost has reached out to Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh.
In a Russian-language video shared on Navalny’s YouTube channel on Monday, Navalnaya accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating Navalny’s death and pledged to continue her husband’s work.
“The main thing that we can do for Alexei and ourselves is to keep fighting. ... We all need to get together in one strong fist and strike that mad regime,” she said, according to The Associated Press.
Recently, Navalnaya shared a Russian-language video on X showing Lyudmila Navalnaya, Navalny’s mother, urging Putin to release her son’s body to her.
“I’m reaching out to you, Vladimir Putin,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said, according to AP. “The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body is released immediately, so that I can bury him like a human being.”