Press Release, 27.06.2020

On June 25, police detained Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Chairman of the Yabloko branch in Yakutia, after a single picket (such pickets do not require any permissions from the authorities) against constitutional amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to remain on the post of President of Russia until 2036. The court sent the leader of the regional branch of Yabloko under arrest for eight days. According to the police (they told it informally to the family of Anatoly Nogovitsyn), the Chairman of the regional branch of Yabloko was detained so that he could not hold any protests on July 1, the final day of voting for  the “reset” of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms.

Earlier the court in Yeysk, the Krasnodar Territory, arrested for ten days Alexander Korovainy, Yabloko’s municipal deputy of the Council of the Municipal Formation of the Yeysk District, for “disobeying the police”. Alexander was arrested after a rally against Vladimir Putin’s amendments to the Constitution. Yabloko considers the arrest of Korovainy a political revenge on the part of the leadership of Yeysk and the Krasnodar Territory and demands his immediate release.

The Yabloko party has been conducting a nation-wide campaign against the “reset” of the presidential terms of Vladimir Putin.

It should be noted On March 12, Yabloko held an all-Russian action against Putin’s usurpation of power. In over 50 regions, party activists picketed their legislative assemblies, which were considering Vladimir Putin’s amendments to the Constitution.

Yabloko’s regional MPs introduced to six legislative assemblies a new chapter of the Constitution on the electoral system, political parties and the rights of the opposition, as well as a package of amendments to the Constitution devoted to improving guarantees of human and civil rights and freedoms.

Yabloko proposes reducing the presidential term to four years, limiting the powers of the head of state to the list provided for by the Constitution, introducing the election of members of the Federation Council, empowering the Federation Council to nominate Public Prosecutor General, and giving the State Duma the right to nominate Prime Minister, allow deputies make a vote of no confidence in individual ministers, expand the composition of the Constitutional Court, return the Supreme Arbitration Court, introduce the election of court chairpersons by the judges, expand the right to a jury trial and introduce the election of justices of the peace.

In addition, the party prepared amendments to ban private military organisations in Russia, transfer to the contract principle of formation of the army, expand the rights of the Federal Assembly to formulation of the country’s foreign policy, and recognise torture as a grave crime.

Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee adopted a statement on the principled unacceptability of voting on Putin’s amendments to the Constitution on July 1.