Statement by the Yabloko party Chairman, 12.12.2021

Photo by Alexander Miridonov / Kommersant

On 6 December, 2021, the Petrogradskiy District Court of St. Petersburgsatisfied the claim of Prof. Alexander Kobrinsky, a member of the Yabloko party, to Sofia Volyanova (Ovchinnikova) and the media Narodnye Novosti (part of the Ye. Prigozhin’s [a businessman connected with Vladimir Putin] media holding).

The court found the article about Kobrinsky on the Kholod web-site containing numerous false defamatory accusations. Despite the fact that the hearings were declared closed, the defendants did not provide any evidence to support what was written in the article.

The court ordered Sofia Volyanova and Narodnye Novosti to publish a retraction of their false defamatory accusations of Kobrinsky.

The Yabloko party once again declares that it considers it extremely important to support and protect women from violence and harassment, but stresses that the principle of “accused means guilty” is unacceptable. Especially in Russia, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed or sent to labour camps on the basis of this principle. Moreover, anonymous accusations, deliberately excluding the possibility of any verification, are unacceptable.

The consequences of such accusations for their victims are comparable to administrative and criminal penalties: people lose their jobs, their long-term social circle, they are subjected to massive harassment on the Internet and outside it. There have been recorded cases of suicide as a result of such accusations.

The Yabloko party is categorically opposed to bullying in all its forms.

One of the most important goals of the Yabloko party is the protection of human rights guaranteed the Russian Constitution in the part that has not yet been disfigured by the Vladimir Putin regime. Among the fundamental and inalienable human rights are the right to privacy, and the right to personal and family secrets.

Unconditional exceptions to this rule are unlawful actions, including involvement of minors in sex, violence against a partner: physical, economic or moral, including coercion associated with the use of official position or other dependence (i.e., harassment in the ordinary interpretation).

However, charges of these actions do not override the presumption of innocence and must be proven in court. For well-known reasons, law enforcement agencies and the court do not enjoy the confidence of citizens in Russia. But it would be a big mistake to transform this distrust into baseless and unsubstantiated accusations or “investigations” whose authors cannot provide evidence of their accusations.

No public organisation has the right to replace the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

The Yabloko party reiterates that recognition of the charges as fair only on the basis of accusation is inadmissible.

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman