Thousands Protest Russian Far East Governor's Arrest in Hot Weather

KHABAROVSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2020) Thousands in Russia's far eastern region of Khabarovsk defied hot weather on Saturday to hold what has become a routine rally against the governor's arrest on murder charges, with some protesters requiring medical care due to intense heat.

Sergei Furgal, a 50-year-old businessman-turned-politician from the right-wing Liberal-Democratic Party, was detained on July 9 for an alleged role in a string of killings in the 2000s. He is in custody in a Moscow prison and denies the charges.

The authorities of the region's main city, Khabarovsk, estimated that up to 10,000 people showed up for the unauthorized protest despite the heat and coronavirus epidemic. This was the second weekend of protesting since rallies began last Saturday.

The crowd marched through the city in sweltering heat for two hours, a Sputnik correspondent said. They were escorted by police units who did not interfere. Volunteers handed out bottles of water. Two ambulances were also spotted.

"People feel faint in the heat. Our brigade [treated] two people, while the other one [treated] one person. We called a third ambulance to send a woman to a hospital after she felt unwell," a paramedic told Sputnik.

Mayor Sergei Kravchuk criticized protesters for breaking social distancing rules, saying they put their own lives at risk. The Russian president's representative in the region, Yuri Trutnev, said people's reaction to Furgal's arrest was understandable but argued that the police would not have acted if there were no proof against him.