State Duma candidate Yelena Izotova, who was not admitted to the parliamentary elections in 2021, disputes in the Supreme Court “involvement in an extremist organisation”
Press Release, 19.09.2022
Photo: Yelena Izotova (left) and Gulnaz Ravilova / Photo from social media
Yelena Izotova, a member of the Council of the regional branch of the Yabloko party in Tatarstan and a Yabloko candidate for deputy of the State Duma in 2021, filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in connection with the case of her alleged “involvement in an extremist organisation”.
In 2021, during the elections to the State Duma, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Tatarstan filed a lawsuit against Yelena Izotova demanding that she should be recognised as involved in the activities of the “Alexei Navalny Headquarters extremist organisation” and, thus, should be deregistered as candidate. The Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan satisfied the Public Prosecutor’s claim and deregistered Izotova as a candidate the day before the election.
It should be noted that Yelena Izotova had been registered as a candidate in a single-mandate district, which includes the territory where construction of a waste incineration plant had been planned, and Izotova and other activists had been opposing this construction.
Following Elena Izotova, similar lawsuits were filed against Ruslan Zinatullin, Chairman of the Tatarstan branch of Yabloko, and Gulnaz Ravilova, Deputy Chair of the Kazan branch of Yabloko.
At present, all of them are deprived of their passive suffrage and cannot be nominated for elections until 2024.
Posted: September 20th, 2022 under Elections, Environmental Policies, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Judiciary, Protection of Environment, State Duma Elections, State Duma Elections 2021, Yabloko's Regional Branches.