LI, 14.08.2014
Yabloko (LI full-member) has called on the World Chess Federation (FIDE) not to re-elect Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as President ahead of the Federation’s Congress meeting in Tromsø, Norway on 11 August.

The urgent request was put forward by the party Bureau which had described the regime of Ilyumzhinov who served as President of the Republic of Kalmykia as “one of the ugliest phenomena in Russia’s political history of the past two decades representing merger of authoritarian rule, corruption and crime.”

In an open letter to the delegates of the FIDE Congress Yabloko’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin has called Ilyumzhinov’s possible re-election inadmissible and disgraceful for the entire international chess movement. “In 1998 the fight against the regime of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov cost the life of Larissa Yudina, Chair of the YABLOKO regional branch in Kalmykia. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s legal assistant was convicted for her murder but the official investigation has not been completed yet. Therefore we cannot rule out that it was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who ordered the murder. We are certain that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who is now losing his presidency in Kalmykia has been trying to keep by all means the post of FIDE President so that to avoid investigation of his activities in Kalmykia and criminal prosecution which he fully deserves” Mitrokhin said.

Yabloko has been conducting annual actions in memory of Larissa Yudina calling for justice in her case.
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