Press Release, 14.06.2017

YABLOKO has opened a hotline for assisting detainees in the actions of 12 June. If you or your relatives or friends were detained at a protest action and are still in the police station, and if a protocol has been drawn up against you, and you face a trial – call the Public Reception Office of the YABLOKO party tel.: +7 (495) 780 3013. The hotline accepts calls from 10:30 to 19:00.

A similar hotline functioned for two weeks after the anti-corruption protests of 26 March, that also resulted in mass detentions. Then we managed to help a few dozen detainees in Moscow and different Russia’s regions.

Representatives of YABLOKO in Moscow and St. Petersburg spent the whole day of 12 June in different police stations, trying to release the detainees and controlling that their rights should not be violated by the law enforcement. Thus, Andrei Babushkin, member of the party Bureau, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moscow and member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, attended both the rally in Sakharov Square and the action in Tverskaya street as an observer. He noted a number of violations committed by law enforcement officers during the detention of participants, in particular, he reported unreasonable use of violence, including against women, from the staff of Rosgvardia (the Russian Guard).

Babushkin also reported that the detainees were kept for a longer time than allowed (over 2.5 hours) in police buses, without been explained the reason for their detention, and there were cases when lawyers were not allowed to the police stations. The report was sent to Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, and Oleg Baranov, ead of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow.

Babushkin formulated recommendations addressed to heads of the Moscow police and Rosgvardia. He proposed to minimise the number of people left in the police stations overnight; in case the organisers’ of an action refuse the previously agreed venue, the authorities should immediately organise the negotiation process with the involvement of the Presidential Council for Human Rights; to prevent excessive use of physical force against persons participating in a non-violent uncoordinated action; to organise a meeting of representatives of the Presidential Council for Human Rights with the heads of Rosgvardia; to involve representatives of the Public Council under Rosgvardia in the monitoring.

In St. Petersburg, Boris Vishnevsky, head of the YABLOKO faction in the Legislative Assembly, was helping the detainees. Together with Natalia Sivokhina from the group of assistance to detainees and Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church, Vishnevsky visited several police stations. Where possible, the detainees were given food, water and other necessary things.

According to Boris Vishnevsky, almost all the detainees were very young. In one of the departments he met Boris Strugatsky, Jr., a student and the grandson of the famous writer.

“On the 12th of June everything was completely different from the [rally of] the 26th of March (in March then after spending five hours in the Police Department No 60 we managed to get everyone released) – no one was charged under Article 19.3 [of the Administrative Violations Code of the RF “disobeying lawful demands of a police officer]. Now [the police] got a more rigid order from the top: it was evident both from the actions of the police and from their conversations. And the hopes of some politicians and commentators that a large number of participants reduces the authorities’ determination to detain them, clearly did not materialise,” Boris Vishnevsky wrote in his column for the St. Petersburg Novaya Gazeta.

Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of YABLOKO, commented on yesterday’s events on his Facebook page. He urged the Russian authorities to immediately release all detainees, “The situation in the country can be remedied not through politicians’ provocations or police truncheons, but by means of voting in the presidential elections for a different way [of development] for our country.”