Statement in connection with the arrest of journalist Ivan Safronov
Statement by Yabloko Chairman, 7.07.2020
Ivan Safronov, former correspondent of Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, was detained on suspicion of treason. The apartment of Taisiya Bekbulatova, Editor-in-Chief of Kholod.Media, was searched. Journalists’ colleagues were detained during [solidarity] single pickets [that do not require any permissions from the authorities] near the Federal Security Service building in Moscow.
We have witnessed numerous trials when the law enforcement blamed people who did not commit any crime. There is every reason to believe that persecution of Ivan Safronov is connected with his professional activities and the desire of people who were hurt by the journalist’s sharp publications to settle accounts with him.
We consider searches in journalists’ apartments as an encroachment on freedom of speech.
On behalf of the Yabloko party, I demand the release of Ivan Safronov or present evidence of the crime. Closed trials of journalists are unacceptable. I demand that the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow release the journalists and stop the detentions of the participants in single picketers outside the Federal Security Service building.
Nikolai Rybakov,
Yabloko Chairman
Posted: July 7th, 2020 under Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights.