Ekho Moskvi radio station, 15.02. 2019

https://www.facebook.com/yabloko.ru/videos/vb.165523123474630/553820905137646/?type=2&theater

On 15 February, Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee and Yabloko founder, commented to the Ekho Moskvi radio station on a criminal case against the Pskov branch of  Yabloko and Lev Shlosberg, Pskov Yabloko leader and MP of the Pskov Regional Assembly.

Yavlinsky noted that the search in the Pskov branch of Yabloko and persecution its leader was a manifestation of the general weakening of power and its increasingly aggressive attempts to preserve itself and create the conditions for a further toughening of the political regime, as opposed to the emerging possibilities for change in the era of the general political crisis in Russia.

“… An unprecedented thing happened there: a police attack on the Yabloko office, searches and seizure [of hard disks and documents], this is the first time that police and Federal Security Service (FSB) attack an opposition political party, this is an unprecedented event in history, this is the beginning of a new phase.

They believe that they can search, intimidate and suppress with impunity the activities of the opposition party and Lev Shlosberg deputy of the Regional [legislative] Assembly. These are actions targeted personally at intimidation of Lev Shlosberg and suppression of the activities of the opposition party.

This case is about that Yabloko allegedly incorrectly voted in the elections of the Governor [of the Pskov Region], called for crossing out of the ballots the Governor and his opponents, whom Yabloko did not consider as opponents. It was approximately what [Mayor of Moscow] Sergei Sobyanin said: “Come, and you can cross out everyone, but please do come”. Lev Shlosberg said approximately the same thing.  Now they invented how to incriminate this to him as a criminal act.

Shlosberg is a bright man, he is a prominent figure in Pskov, a prominent political person, a man who has clear political views.

He belongs to a political party, is a member of the Political Committee [which is a steering body] of the party, which considers the war with Ukraine a crime, which considers the annexation of Crimea unacceptable, which considers it necessary to withdraw troops from Syria, which suggests that a mafia state has been created in Russia. He is a leader.

I don’t know the precedents of such actions against a political party, but this is an anti-constitutional action, suppressing the opposition, the legal opposition, I should emphasise, Yabloko has been working as a legal political party in Russia for 25 years, Shlosberg has had a [Yabloko] branch for more than 20 years and he is an MP in the Pskov Parliament. All this is a set of events testifying to the increase in reprisals on the example of Lev Shlosberg.

We made all the statements, our party leader [Emilia Slabunova] demanded explanations from the Public Prosecutor General’s Office and from the FSB, from the Investigation Committee, we will not leave it, we understand what the next steps will be and where it will lead.

The goal is to intimidate, suppress opposition, silence, stop criticism of the Pskov government, and ahead of all [not yet adopted] laws, come and conduct such a search, seize documents, seize a hard disk. All this represents suppression of the activities of the opposition political party.

Gradually, the situation has been coming into a deadlock, and it provokes those who got into this deadlock to take such action. This suggests that we have a political crisis ahead, this is a manifestation of a political crisis, and a political crisis is a serious event that, on the one hand, can be very alarming, but, on the other hand, it opens up very serious opportunities, because it testifies that the system is weak and it is coming to a turning point.

In the near future there will be developments opening up new opportunities due to the fact that the system begins to gradually crumble and fail. This internal political crisis is always an opportunity – something that has not been here for a long time. [Force actions] represent the attempts to stop the development of this crisis…”