Press Release, 27.10.2022

Photo: Savva Karpov / Photo from social media

Savva Karpov, a former Yabloko candidate for Moscow municipal elections in September 2022, is being charged today under Article 20.3 for “distributing extremist symbols” of the Code of Administrative Offences. Yesterday, the police detained him and took him to the Basmanny police station in Moscow.

Like Nikita Arkin, his colleague from the Basmanny electoral district, Karpov is charged with distributing a leaflet with the Smart Voting symbols (the so-called Smart Voting project by Alexei Navalny’s team called to vote for any party but the ruling United Russia, Yabloko opposed it as a project promoting communists and other pro-government parties into power).

During the election campaign, a provocation was committed against Yabloko’s candidate: leaflets with the logo of the banned Smart Voting were allegedly distributed in the district, after which the police tried to detain Karpov.

Savva Karpov and Nikita Arkin did not produce or distribute any leaflets with prohibited symbols.

Later, Karpov was deprived of his passive suffrage, accused of allegedly having a residence permit in Germany, which was not true. Karpov found out that he had been withdrawn from the elections incidentally, a few days after the decision of the territorial electoral commission.

It should be noted that eleven candidates from Yabloko were charged with violations under the said Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, which deprived them of the passive suffrage for a year. They were removed from the elections, received fines or served arrests. Every fifth Yabloko candidate was withdrawn from the elections in September.

Like all Yabloko candidates, Savva Karpov campaigned under the slogan “For Peace!”.