Press Release, 8.08.2019

The police came home to Oleg Rodin, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, and Alexei Sadomovsky, Deputy Chairman of the party branch. Police officers also came to other political and civil activists in Nizhny Novgorod. The police gave them warnings about participating in an unpermitted rally in Nizhny Novgorod on 10 August.

Oleg Rodin, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, stressed that the claims of the police are absurd, since no permitted rally was planned in Nizhny Novgorod on 10 August. There will be a permitted action within the framework of the All-Russian Campaign for Fair Elections and Against the Arbitrary Rule of the Authorities, which will be held in Nizhny Novgorod in the format of a mass picket in Lenin Square on August 10 at 2 p.m.

“The law enforcement are afraid of publicity, so they want as few people as possible to come to the picket and express their opinions openly. We can fight this only with greater openness, the dissemination of information among our friends and, certainly, participation in the action,” Oleg Rodin said.

Alexei Sadomovsky, Deputy Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Yabloko, noted that non-registration of virtually all independent candidates for the Moscow City Duma provoked a political crisis.

“Tough suppression of protests, criminal cases against candidates and protesters caused discontent among citizens across the country. We demand the registration of all independent candidates who collected signatures, the release of all those detained during peaceful rallies in Moscow, and the release of all political prisoners,” Sadomovsky stressed.

The organisers of the mass picket in Nizhny Novgorod are the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, the Libertarian Party of Russia and the Nizhny Novgorod headquarters of Alexei Navalny.