Statement, 14.02.2019

The Yabloko party expresses a categorical protest against the search conducted by the Investigation Department of the Investigation Committee of Russia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Pskov Region in the premises of the Pskov regional branch of the Yabloko party on 13 February.

A politically motivated forceful persecution of opposition political parties, use of a police repressive machine against legal political opposition is an anti-constitutional act. This is another shameful illustration of the unwise policies of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime, which suppresses any civic activism.

The very initiation of this criminal case in September 2018 on the fact of publication of leaflets calling for voters to come to the elections of the Governor of the Pskov region and make the ballot null and void by voting for all candidates for the Governor post is absolutely absurd and has no relation to the law.

There is no legal basis behind this case, only political reasons. This is easily proved by the fact that on 3 September, Sergei Sobyanin, the candidate for Mayor of Moscow, issued a similar appeal to voters, in which he said: “Do you think that there is not a single worthy candidate? But this is no excuse for not coming [to the polling stations]. In the end, cross out everyone, and that too will be an act. ”

No one opened a criminal case against Sobyanin, no one in the law enforcement agencies regarded Sobyanin’s appeal as a violation of the electoral rights of citizens or candidates for the post of Mayor, which Sobyanin himself was at that moment. Meanwhile, it is this interpretation of the law that the Pskov investigators are trying to lay as a basis in the instigated criminal case.

The approach of the Pskov investigators directly limits the right of citizens to vote beyond the framework of the proposed choice, forcing voters to vote for those whom they do not support. This is a violation of the electoral rights of citizens, a violation of the constitutional foundations of Russia.

This is a deliberately unlawful matter, deliberately open to solving only political tasks, in particular, putting pressure on Lev Shlosberg, Chairman of the Pskov Yabloko, deputy of the Pskov Regional Assembly, and restricting his rights, [pressure] on the Pskov regional branch of the Yabloko party.

The Yabloko party considers the initiation of this criminal case be an attack on the entire party and encroachment on the legal basis of the activities of political parties in Russia. We demand immediate cessation of this case due to the absence of a crime event in the actions of all its defendants.

We also demand that the Public Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation conduct an inspection of all the circumstances of the initiation of this criminal case with a view to establishing out-of-legal grounds for its customers and organisers.

Emilia Slabunova,

Yabloko Chair