We demand not to turn the law enforcement into punitive bodies

Statement by the Yabloko party, 18.03.2022

Photo by Alexander Kazakov/Kommersant

Early in the morning of 18 March, the police, with the participation of riot police (OMON), searched the apartment of the Chairman of the Pskov Yabloko Lev Shlosberg, members of the Regional Council of the Pskov Yabloko Nikolai Kuzmin and Yekaterina Novikova, the parents of Nikolai Kuzmin, the parents of the Editor-in-Chief of the Pskovskaya Gubernia newspaper Denis Kamalyagin, in the house and apartment of journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, and in the home of journalist Viktor Agafonov. The search was also carried out in the apartment of 93-year-old father of Lev Shlosberg.

The searches were carried out without a court warrant, by order of the interrogating officer to conduct the searches “in cases of urgency”, within the framework of a criminal case on libel (Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The reason for the searches was the publication in an anonymous (and not related to the Pskov Yabloko) Telegram channel of a post allegedly discrediting the Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov. According to the investigator’s warrant, the publication was placed by “unidentified persons in an unidentified place,” but the searches were carried out precisely at the homes of members of the official Russian political party, Yabloko.

The police again came with a search to the office of the Pskov Yabloko (on 5 March, a search was already conducted there, and all the equipment was seized, including ten computers).

The purpose of this police action is an attempt to intimidate members of the party and paralyse the work of its branch.

Yesterday, on 17 March, searches were carried out in the apartments of Kazan activists of the Yabloko party – Ruslan Zinatullin, Chairman of the Tatarstan Yabloko and party activists Gulnaz Ravilova and Yelena Izotova. The searches were carried out within the framework of a criminal case on incitement to mass riots.

We declare that these cases have all the signs of a political order from the regional authorities, who, taking advantage of the emergency situation in the country and aggravating it, are settling personal scores, since both in the Pskov region and in Tatarstan, the Yabloko party has been harshly criticising the socio-economic policy of the governors, being their only real political opponent.

We demand to immediately end political repressions, as well as the illegal actions of regional law enforcement agencies, and not to turn the law enforcement into punitive bodies in the personal interests of governors.

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman

Grigory Yavlinsky,

Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee