Press release, 19.03.2014

YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin sent an appeal to Kalmyk’s Minister of Internal Affairs Andrei Mishagin and Kalmyk’s Prosecutor Alexei Samsonov with the demand to make enquiry on the unlawful retrieval of The Modern Kalmyk oppositional newspaper and the invasion to Chair of the Kalmyk branch of YABLOKO Batyr Boromangayev’s flat.

According to Batyr Boromangayev, the police entered the flat under the pretense of checking the information about the cries for help which supposedly greeted from his flat. As the police entered the flat they suddenly changed the goal of their presence and decided to retrieve 7000 numbers of the Modern Kalmyk newspaper. The police officers explained that the newspaper contained extremist information.

The police refused to leave the flat, bring the lawful grounds for the check or draw up a protocol of the retrieval of the newspapers. According to Batyr Boromangayev, investigator Valery Ulymdzhayev threatened him with a service gun.

The newspaper contained the information on the preparation for the Oirat-Kalmyk folk’s conference which will take place in May, a letter to Vladimir Putin with the request to bring discipline to the federal law on victims of political reprisals and rehabilitation of repressed peoples, return the law on compensation for moral injury that was abolished on January 1, 2005. It also contained the address of Professor Vladimir Gorbatenko form Kiev to the Russian society explaining his position on the possibility of sending the Russian troops to Ukraine.

“The unlawful retrieval of the newspaper should be regarded as violation of press freedom,” said YABLOKO leader.

Sergei Mitrokhin demanded Minister of Internal Affairs and Prosecutor to conduct a check of the law enforcement agencies’ actions in accordance with the law on police and take the appropriate measures.