The Yabloko offices hosted final actions of 2022 in support of political prisoners

Press Release, 29.12.2022

Photo: Moscow / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Over the past two weeks, the regional offices of the Yabloko party have hosted the final actions of 2022 in support of political prisoners. Since the middle of the year, Yabloko regional branches have held regular actions of support, not only party members, but also civil activists take part in them. It has become a duty for Yabloko and civil activists to support those unfairly imprisoned with kind words.

In this special and terrible year, the list of Russian political prisoners has grown. Today the Memorial human rights group has more than 500 people on the list of political prisoners. At the same time, a year ago, in October 2021, according to Memorial, there were 420 political prisoners in Russia.

The list of those criminally prosecuted for their convictions contains such well-known politicians as Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Alexei Gorinov, journalists Ivan Safronov and Maria Ponomarenko, civil activists Sasha Skochilenko, and Olga Smirnova, and less known Yabloko members Mikhail Afanasiyev (Khakassia ), Vladimir Efimov (Kamchatka), Anatoly Nogovitsyn (Yakutia), and Alexander Grigoriyev (Lipetsk).

More than 400 postcards and letters were sent to political prisoners at the final actions of this year. All the New Year’s post cards prepared at these final actions contained the wishes of freedom and peace. These final actions were attended by more than a hundred people – party members and civil activists.

In some regions activists had to confront problems at their actions of support. Thus, in Moscow, members of the nationalist movement SERB, including former municipal deputy from a Just Russia party, Igor Brumel, broke into the central office of Yabloko when Yabloko members were writing letters of support. The hooligans twice called the police to the Yabloko office, demanding to check whether the activists were writing letters to the terrorists. The police officers who arrived for the second time said that they would detain the callers if they did not calm down. There were no more claims from the nationalists.

Yabloko thanks all party members and civil activists who took part in the actions of support.  Unfortunately, next year may bring more persecutions and imprisonment terms. Yabloko will go on with the actions in support of political prisoners in January 2023.

See more photos here: https://www.yabloko.ru/cat-news/2022/12/29