Press release, 06.05.2015
Activists of the Novosibirsk branch of YABLOKO conducted picketing for freedom of political prisoners on the anniversary of Bolotnaya Squere rally 2012. Chair of the Novosibirsk branch of YABLOKO Alexandra Nalobina participated in the action. The activists held the placards which said “Loskutov must be released”, “Free Evgeny Vitishko and all environmental activists!”.

Artyem Loskutov is a Russian artists, one of the organisers of the annual Monstration action, who was given ten days of arrest and fined for non-observance of police orders despite the fact that he didn’t receive any orders from police officers and, according to the witnesses, didn’t break the law. Amnesty International announced Loskutov the prisoner of conscience.

YABLOKO member Evgeny Vitishko is a well-known environmentalist, civil activist and one of the founders of the Environmental Watch on North Caucuses public group. In 2012 Evgeny Vitishko was charged with three years on probation for criticism of Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachyov under a pretext of spray-paining on the fence of his “country house” built on the seized and fenced public lands. The environmental activist expressed his disagreement with unlawful seizure of the lands and fencing of public territories in a natural reserve near the Black Sea. On the threshold of the Sochi Olympic Games suspended sentence for Vitishko was replaced by a real term in a penal settlement.

International organisations made statements in support of Vitishko repeatedly. In 2014 Amnesty International declared that Vitishko was prisoner of conscience. In March 2015 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights addressed Russia with a call to take urgent measures to protect Evgeny Vitishko’s rights and freedoms. Human Rights Watch also addressed the Russian authorities demanding to release Evgeny Vitishko. ALDE Party President Sir Graham Watson earlier this year stated that he “finds it cynical against the background of the Winter Olympics that a respected environmentalist from the Sochi region, who was protesting against the severe destruction of ecological systems in and around Sochi in connection with the Olympic games, receives such a lengthy sentence. It represents another episode in the ongoing wave of reprisals against civil society activists in Russia. Yevgeny Vitishko must be freed.” Statements in favour of the release of Vitishko were made by world and European liberals – Liberal International, the ALDE party, Norwegian Venstre, Zares, Slovenia, the Liberal Party of Moldova, Italia dei Valori, Italy and other. IOC and Olympic Committees of Norway and Sweden and Prime Minister of Norway and the EU delegation also asked for his release.