Press Release, 17.07.2019

The police refused to initiate a criminal case on threats to Nikita Antonenko, activist of the Nizhny Novgorod Yabloko and candidate for deputy in the Nizhny Novgorod Duma in single-mandate constituency No. 24. According to law enforcement officers, they did not identify any real threat to Yabloko’s candidate.

On 6 July, Nikita Antonenko found a note from someone “Nameless” inserted in the front door of his flat with the following content: “politics is not for you, boy. you are small and do not understand how everything is arranged here and nobody needs you here. leave quietly calmly. we will find a way to remove you and then everything will be much worse ”(spelling and punctuation of the author are preserved).

Activists of the Nizhniy Novgorod Yabloko noted that Nikita Antonenko learned about the refusal to initiate a case from the regional office of Yabloko and not from the police.

“The police did not inform him about the decision. The refusal will be appealed, as the police did not take any action to establish the corpus delicti,”said Oleg Rodin, head of the Yabloko branch in Nizhny Novgorod.

Rodin stressed that the party would further publicise any such threats to its candidates so that to stop this.

By-elections to the Nizhny Novgorod Duma will be held in single-mandate constituencies Nos. 9, 15, 16, 21 and 24 on a single voting day on 8 September. The mandates became vacant after resignation and early termination of powers of some deputies. Four candidates from Nizhny Novgorod Yabloko will participate in the elections: Yevgeny Dolgopolov, programmer of telecommunication systems (district No. 9), lawyer Svetlana Falkonskaya (district No. 24), Nikita Antonenko, urbanist (district No. 24) and Alexander Zamishlyayev (district No. 15), consturction worker.