Press release, 14.06.2019

Yevgeny Bunimovich, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Moscow and member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko Party, appealed to the Chief Public Prosecutor of Moscow in connection with detention of minors during a demonstration against the arbitrariness of the law enforcement held in Moscow on 12 June, the Russia Day.

“There are complaints that minors were kept in a police van and that parents were not immediately informed about their arrest. What happened in the police stations, whether everything was in compliance with the law – should be checked. And certainly, the accident with a teenager who was sent to the hospital by ambulance from Alekseyevsky Department of Internal Affairs, requires a separate investigation,” Yevgeny Bunimovich noted.

Bunimovich also stressed that according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to freely express their opinions, and the state should respect their right to freedom of thought. By the age of 16-17, their personal civic stance is being formed, and this is natural. At the age of 18, they can already start a family, vote in elections, and serve in the army.

“Teenagers understand everything very well, they have a very keen sense of justice: they have a very negative attitude towards all the facts of corruption and injustice in our society. In particular, such a reaction was caused by the [journalist] Ivan Golunov case. All of us – politicians, state agencies, authorised persons, and just citizens – should bear in mind that we act before the eyes of the younger generation and, correspondingly, we are accountable to them for our actions,” the Children’s Ombudsman stressed.

The organisers of the action of 12 June planned to march to the Moscow Police Department building at Petrovka 38, to demand the release of Ivan Golunov, investigative journalist of Meduza, who was planted drugs by policemen and detained on suspicion of drug trafficking. However, on the eve of the march, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev announced that the case against Golunov was closed and all charges against him were dropped. Despite this, hundreds of people took to the streets of Moscow, demanding to stop the arbitrariness of the security services and release other detainees on trumped-up charges. The action was attended by activists of the Yabloko party, including candidates for the Moscow City Duma from the party.

Immediately after the news about the arrest of Ivan Golunov became known,  Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova, and Alexei Karnaukhov, head of the party’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre, appealed to the Public Prosecutor General’s Office to immediately release the journalist and conduct police checks. On 8 June, the conference of the Moscow Yabloko, at the initiative of Grigory Yavlinsky, also adopted a statement in support of the journalist.