The participants of the action planned on May 1 to march along Myasnitskaya street to Lubyanka square and conduct a meeting there by the Solovetsky Stone. An estimated 6,000 were expected to attend.

In addition to YABLOKO, the following organisations planned to participate in the action: the Committee-2008, the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), the Moscow Helsinki Group, the movements "For Human Rights," "Common Action", the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, as well as a number of environmental organisations and independent trade unions.

The members of the organisational committee of the action are bewildered about the refusal: YABLOKO has extensive experience in filing applications for such actions. However, this is the first time that they have faced such fault-finding. Nevertheless, the organisers of the action will defend the right of citizens to freedom of assembly and are going to file another application with the Mayor's Office on conducting a march and a meeting.

The meeting in Moscow represents only a part of the nationwide action "Civil Society Against a Police State," marches and meetings in defence of democracy, civil rights and liberties are planned in a number of Russian cities. One of the pretexts for the action was the adoption by the State Duma of the law "On Assemblies, meeting, Demonstrations and Picketing." According to YABLOKO's activists, the law violates the constitutional rights of citizens to freedom of assembly; based on this law the authorities would be able to ban any public action.

Commenting on the refusal of the Moscow authorities to allow YABLOKO and other organisations to conduct a march on May 1, Deputy Head of the YABLOKO party Sergei Mitrokhin said, "this is already an example of our dealings with the representatives of the police state who have not yet adopted a draconian law on meetings, but have virtually implemented the law."

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