Russian authorities detain over 1,000 protesters

DPA, 10TH SEPTEMBER, 2018-Russian authorities detained more than 1,000 protesters on Sunday during elections for local and regional posts, according to the country’s most prominent independent monitor for such data.

The highest number of detainees was in Russia’s second-largest city, St Petersburg, with more than 450, the monitor OVD-INFO said on its website.

More than 180 protesters were reported detained in the city of Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, 60 in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, 40 in the Siberian city of Omsk and 40 in Russia’s capital, Moscow.

Demonstrators were also detained in more than 30 other cities, the monitor said. The protests were called by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent foe, Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 30-day jail sentence for organizing unauthorized public events.

The elections were overshadowed by dissatisfaction with government plans to raise the pension age by at least five years as the country struggles with a demographic crisis.

Putin, who is 65, has attested that the pension age should be raised to 60 for women and 65 for men because there is an escalating burden on the pension system.

Forty-three per cent of Russian men are not expected to reach the age of 65, with the average life expectancy in Russia at 66 for men and 77 for women, according to World Bank data from two years ago.

Russia’s largest state pollster had expected voter turnout to be low because of the dissatisfaction with the pension reform.