Statement by the YABLOKO party, January 30, 2014

The YABLOKO party expresses protest in connection with the fact that the public prosecution demanded large terms of imprisonment for the Bolotnaya Square Case prisoners: the demonstrators may face up to five or six years in prison.

Such a sentence will become another evidence of the repressive character of our judicial and law enforcement systems. This punishment is supposed to frighten those who are not afraid of expressing their opinion aloud, attend opposition rallies and dare to protest against the authorities.

The judicial process against the Bolotnaya Square Case prisoners was conducted with mass law violations. The judge Natalya Nikishina cynically defied the adversarial principle more than once. Taking the prosecutor’s side again and again she actually turned into a prosecutor herself.

Everybody knows that the public prosecution didn’t manage to prove the prisoners’ guilt and their (prosecutor’s) statements were demolished by a large number of witnesses. There are no video records that prove that the accused took violent actions against the police. The Bolotnaya prisoners became “guilty without guilt” and are victims of our authorities’ repressive policy.

We call the Zamoskvoretsky court [where the judicial process takes place] to get rid of the pressure of the telephone justice and pass a sentence according to the principles of humanity and common sense. All the eight prisoners should be released!

YABLOKO Chairman,
Sergei Mitrokhin