Photo: Meeting of Deputy of the State Duma of the RF Alexei Melnikov (the YABLOKO faction) and representatives of the federal national and cultural autonomies of Russia, Russia's national communities and representatives of the mass media of national minorities.

The following issues were discussed at the meeting:

• situation with human rights in the Russian Federation, as well as issues related to discussion of the candidacy of the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation;

• YABLOKO's cooperation with federal national cultural autonomies and communities on the legislative level;

• YABLOKO's cooperation with federal national cultural autonomies and communities to resolve problems linked to violation of laws related to national minorities.

Melnikov informed the participants of the meeting about the position of the YABLOKO party on policy for different nationalities in general. He assessed Russia's present national policies as dissatisfactory and stated that YABLOKO is ready to do all it can to improve the situation and take definite steps to resolve this problem.

The participants of the meeting raised the most painful problems and criticised the work of YABLOKO and the State Duma in general in national policies. However, the participants of the meting also noted that YABLOKO was virtually the only Russian party with the programme incentives in national policies and declared values of equality of all nationalities before the law, as well as protection of human rights are clear and close to the national communities of the present Russia.

Commenting on the results of the meeting, Melnikov said, "It was a useful and honest talk. It was pleasant to hear nice things about YABLOKO, as well as just criticism. Proceeding from the results of the meeting we will prepare a plan of action and coordinate it with representatives of national communities and then begin our work. We don't regard such a discussion as election campaign propaganda: we are speaking hereabout serious work to protect human rights, in particular, what YABLOKO can do here and what can we do in our fight with clear violations of the law."

The list of the participants of the meeting