Crowds estimated between 15,000 and 50,000 have taken to the streets of the eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk to protest the arrest of the region’s governor by Moscow on suspicion of being involved in a series of murders in 2004 and 2005.
According to The Guardian, Sergei Furgal was arrested two weeks ago and spirited 3,800 miles to Moscow, where it was announced he will be jailed for two months. There is no public record of Furgal being charged or found guilty of a crime, although the federal Investigative Committee announced the arrest.
Furgal has denied any involvement in the crimes, which happened while he was a businessman before he entered politics. Furgal’s July 9th arrest by Russian law enforcement officers in camouflage and masks was broadcast around the nation in an apparent effort to disgrace him.
A member of the Liberal Democratic Party, Furgal’s 2018 election was seen as a rebuke of the reign of Vladimir Putin and Putin’s United Russia party. Furgal had served ten years as a regional representative in the Duma, Russia’s legislative body, before being elected governor of Governor of Khabarovsk Krai in 2018.
Khabarovsk Krai is a state with 1.3 million people that borders the Sea of Japan and China on Russia’s East Coast. The city of Khabarovsk has nearly 600,000 residents.