Action “Preventing Extremism”
brutally broken by police
Press Release
June 11, 2010
Action against introduction of amendments on the law on the
Federal Security Service (the former KGB), which YABLOKO attempted
to hold today by the building of the State Duma (the Russian
Parliament) was brutally broken by police. Despite of the
fact that it was a one-person picketing (four activists had
to replace each other in turn) and did not require any permissions
or notifications from the authorities, four YABLOKO’s activists
were arrested and taken to the local police department and
a placard depicting the head of KGB Felix Dzerzhinsky, the
closest accomplice of Stalin in setting terror in the country
Lavrenty Beria, and Vladimir Putin and bearing a the words
"The KGB people vote FOR it!" was confiscated.
On June 11, at 9.30 am, half an hour before the plenary session
the Russian parliament had to start, First Deputy Chair of
the Moscow Yabloko Galina Mikhalyova took her place by the
main entrance to the parliament building with a placard depicting
Felix Dzerzhinsky, Lavrenty Beria and Vladimir Putin against
a black ground and a hand voting for them. “The law on preventing
extremism. The KGB people vote FOR it! " run the slogan
under the picture. The Russian parliament will discuss this
draft law in the first reading today.
Member of the Regional Council of the Moscow Yabloko Arthur
Grokhovsky and two activists from YABLOKO’s youth branch Maxim
Kruglov and Igor Savelov were waiting at the corner of the
building, a few dozen meters from Galina Mikhalyova, for their
turn to stand in a one-person picket with a poster.
Already in the first minutes of picketing riot police tried
to tear the placard from Mikhalyova’s hands and take it into
the police car, however, deputies of the parliament who were
passing by to their offices intervened. They showed keen interest
to the placard and even entered into debates Mikhalyova.
But when the deputies were gone, Major Brezhnev, who led
the policemen, made an order to arrest YABLOKO’s activists.
Grokhovsky was the first to be taken to the police car. He
tried to phone the Police Officer on Duty in the Moscow Main
Police Department and explain to him that police actions were
absolutely unlawful, as one-person pickets require no permission
or coordination with the authorities.
However, Major Brezhnev hit him in the belly. Kruglov and
Saveliev, and then Galina Mikhalyova were also arrested.
Now they are all in the local police department Tverskoye.
YABLOKO believes that the amendments to the law on the Federal
Security Service (FSB) will provide unlimited opportunities
for arbitrary actions by the security forces. "The draft
law granting the FSB the right to make official warnings to
the Russian citizens for the acts that may cause extremism,
and to arrest for 15 days those who disobey the lawful request
by the security officer which provides grounds for a breach
of law by staff of the Federal Security Service and is targeted
at reprisals against the dissenting,” runs YABLOKO’s statement.
