Press Release, 12.05.2022

Photo by Pyotr Ivanov

Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, appealed to Roman Plugin, head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, with a request to conduct another check into the facts of non-admission of lawyers to those detained at winter actions of protest against the “special military operation”.

Earlier, deputies from Yabloko received responses from the interior, stating that a check conducted by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had not revealed the facts of violations of the law by officials of the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the district level in St. Petersburg, in particular, the facts of police officers restricting the access of lawyers to those detained and accused of administrative offences had not been established.

In a repeated appeal to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the head of the Yabloko faction notes that the answers by the interior not only directly contradict numerous reports from the media and human rights organisations, but also the decisions of the courts (in particular, the Kalininsky and Vasileostrovskiy district courts), which returned back to the police and dismissed cases against detainees due to non-admission of lawyers to them in the police departments.

It should be noted that in early March, the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg came out in defence of the rights of participants in anti-war actions. Alexander Shishlov and Boris Vishnevsky also raised these issues during the annual report of the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg to the St.Petersburg parliament.

ALEXANDER SHISHLOV

is head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg