Press Release, November 19, 2013

Member of YABLOKO Political Committee, former head of the Public Monitoring Committee and its member for nearly nine years Valery Borshchev explained why 17 members of the Public Monitoring Committee of the third convocation left the hall during the elections of their chairperson. According to Borshchev, such an outcome was predicted.

“When the Public Chamber adopted the list of the Public Monitoring Committee’s members, they didn’t take the list proposed by Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin into consideration. Very experienced human rights advocates were on that list. The other list of 23 people, we call it “Zvetkov’s list”, contained the names of the people who have nothing to do with human rights protection, they represent different public groups”, said Valery Borshchev.

Anton Zvetkov was elected new Chair of the Committee. Zvetkov is a representative of ‘siloviki’ (the defence, the security, the interior). He is known for his prejudiced opinion towards political prisoners and connections with the Presidential ADministration.

Borshchev also said that, that, according to the law, the lists of the Public Monitoring Committee’s members should be approved by the Public Chamber, but this time the list was compiled by some secret working group, its staff as well as the selection criteria were unknown.

The human rights advocates tried to achieve A compromise. Deputy Chair of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO, member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Andrei Babushkin proposed to establish the institute of co-chairmanship. But Zvetkov’s group denied the proposal.

According to Borshchev, the atmosphere at the meeting was aggressive. Zvetkov’s group threatened to the human rights defenders. Borshchev’s supporters insisted on voting by secret ballot as they knew that some representatives of the Zvetkov’s group wanted to support Borshchev, but couldn’t do it openly. But Zvetkov didn’t support the initiative of secret voting.

Human rights advocate Anna Karetnikova said that the election of Anton Zvetkov as Chair of the Public Monitoring Committee was predictable. “The decision to make him Chair was made in the President’s Executive Council. I’m not going to congratulate Anton Zvetkov on his new position as he is not a human rights advocate and not independent.
The first rout of the public control in Moscow took place. Valery Borshchev is the face of public control. The decision to dismiss him might be the revenge for his participation in the investigation of Sergei Magnitsky’s death”.

The human rights advocates are aware that Zvetkov will change the way of the Committee’s members work. At the moment the group of two members of the Public Monitoring Committee is enough to visit the pre-trail detention centers, and the visit shouldn’t be agreed with the Chair of the Committee.

Valery Borshchev believes that the present Public Monitoring Committee is incompetent. “We are determined to appeal to the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation to dissolve the Public Monitoring Committee”, he said.