Press Release, 24.04.2024

Photo: Boris Vishnevsky / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Boris Vishnevsky, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg and Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, sent two administrative claims to the court challenging the decision of the Ministry of Justice to include him in the register of “foreign agents.”

The lawsuit filed in the Vasileostrovsky District Court in St.Petersburg (as of his place of residence) runs that due to the fact that Russian citizen Boris Vishnevsky, contrary to the statements by the Ministry of Justice, has never been under any “foreign influence”, and his activities have been related exclusively to the implementation of his constitutional human rights.

The lawsuit filed in the Oktyabrsky Districit Court in St.Petersburg (as of the location of the Department of the Ministry of Justice in St. Petersburg) by Boris Vishnevsky as a deputy of the St.Petersburg city parliament runs that the decision of the Ministry of Justice illegally interferes with Vishnevsky’s activities as a deputy and conflicts with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and current legislation.

“As a deputy and politician, I represent the interests only of my voters, citizens of the Russian Federation, I do not represent anyone else’s interests and am not under any external influence, only the Constitution of the Russian Federation influences me. I perceive the decision of the Ministry of Injustice, mistakenly called the Ministry of Justice (that is, fairness), as an insult not only to me, but also to hundreds of thousands of my constituents for whom I work. Now this work has been significantly complicated by the restrictions associated with the “foreign agent” status assigned by officials out of court. The decision of the Ministry of Justice represents political persecution for my activities and position. In court, I will defend not only my rights and my good name, but also the rights of those who chose me and trust me,” Vishnevsky says.

It should be noted that the Ministry of Justice included Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and an MP of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg, in the register of foreign agents on 29 March. One of the reasons was that, according to the Ministry of Justice, Boris Vishnevsky “disseminated false information about the decisions taken by public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies pursued by them”.

Earlier the “foreign agent” status was assigned to Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the Federal Political Committee of the party and a human rights defender, Lev Shlosberg, Deputy Chairman of the party, Andrei Morev, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of the party and Dmitry Muratov, a member of Yabloko, journalist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.