Nikolai Rybakov to Interior Minister: Immediately stop unlawful detention of citizens
Statement by Yabloko Chairman, 14.03.2020
To: Vladimir Kolokoltsev,
Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation
I demand that those detained during one-person pickets [these pickets do not require any permission from the authorities] in Moscow be immediately released and that you order to stop unlawful practices of detentions at one-person pickets.
Thus, today, on March 14, about 30 citizens were detained in Lubyanka Square in Moscow, who did not even stand with placards, but only intended to do so. Among the detainees, as often happens, were journalists and passers-by, as well as human rights activists Lev Ponomaryov, Irina Yatsenko, Pavel Kudyukin and others.
Your staff provoke escalation of tension in society. We believe that ordinary employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, executing unlawful orders of senior in rank, receive a kind of vaccination of “legal nihilism”, which can further provoke them to commit other misconduct and even crimes.
I demand an internal investigation into the beating of Lev Ponomaryov by law enforcement officials.
Nikolai Rybakov,
Yabloko Chairman
Posted: March 16th, 2020 under Constitutional Amendments, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights.