The Hague’s city council has turned down a request to rename the street where the Russian embassy is located in honour of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Some 86,000 people signed an online petition calling for the name to be changed from Andries Bickerweg in the wake of Navalny’s death in a Siberian prison camp in February.

Lissa Holman, who posted the petition, said the 47-year-old former lawyer was a “hero of our time” for speaking out against Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The council said it had a policy of not naming streets after people who had been dead for less than 10 years, and existing streets were only renamed in cases of the “utmost urgency”.

It also pointed out that other residents and businesses in the street, which is also home to the embassy of Azerbaijan, would be affected by the name change.

“This ‘administrative relocation’ will have a great impact, which will lead to financial and other possible objections,” the council said in a written response to the petition.