Tens of thousands of people have marched for Russia southeastern Khabarovsk city on the border with China to protest the regional governor’s arrest on murder charges, continuing a two-week wave of protests that has challenged the Kremlin.
Sergei Furgal has been in a Moscow jail since his arrest on July 9, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has named an interim successor.
The protesters in Khabarovsk consider the charges against Furgal to be unfounded and demand that he be tried at home.
“People are offended,” protester Dmitry Kachalin said Saturday. “I think people take to the streets because they took away their vote in the 2018 elections.”
Unlike Moscow, where the police generally move quickly to disperse unauthorized opposition protests, authorities have not interfered with unauthorized demonstrations in the city of Khabarovsk, located 6,100 km (3,800 miles) east of the capital. Russian.
But the daily protests, peaking on weekends, have continued for two weeks, reflecting anger at what residents see as Moscow’s disrespect for its choice of governor and boiling discontent with the Putin’s government. Attempts by local officials to discourage people from joining the protests by warning of the risk of coronavirus infection have been unsuccessful.
People participate in a demonstration in support of the arrested regional governor Sergei Furgal in Khabarovsk [Evgenii Pereverzev/Reuters]
“We have had enough,” said protester Anastasia Schegorina. “We elect the governor and we want to be heard and decide what to do with him. Bring him here, and a fair and open trial will decide whether or not we will condemn him.”
Protesters chanted “Freedom!” and “Russia, wake up!” and carried placards expressing support for Furgal and denouncing Putin, as the drivers of passing cars honked in support.
Kremlin warning
On Monday, Putin officially fired Furgal, 50, and named a legislator from the same nationalist LDPR party, Mikhail Degtyarev, as his acting substitute.
The move was greeted with anger from Khabarovsk residents who said the 39-year-old stranger lacked experience and had no connection to the region.
In a video posted to Instagram this week, Degtyarev dismissed the calls for him to resign, saying the mass protests did not reflect wider public opinion.
Before Friday’s protests, he suggested that foreign citizens had flown from Moscow to Khabarovsk to help organize the protests.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations of foreign interference, but said the protests were a “nutrient … for rioters” and “pseudo-opposition” activists.
A woman holds a banner that says: “I am / We are Sergei Furgal” [Evgenii Pereverzev/Reuters]
Furgal’s arrest before a trial in September sparked a protest by his nationalist LDPR party whose firemark leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky this week promised to secure a presidential pardon if found guilty of the charges.
The Russian Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said Furgal was accused of ordering the murders and assassination attempts of several businessmen in 2004 and 2005.
Critics say the case is politically motivated after Furgal was elected with a large majority in 2018 in a shameful defeat for a Putin-backed ruling party candidate.
They have demanded that Furgal face the charges in Khabarovsk and wonder why investigators waited so long to charge an official that he should have undergone a background check.
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