Press Release, 8.12.2020

The Chelyabinsk  branch of Yabloko submitted to the Regional Electoral Commission its proposals to include Yabloko representatives in the 26 territorial electoral commissions of the Chelyabinsk Region. By the end of December, the Regional Electoral Commission must decide on the new composition of territorial electoral commissions in 46 territories.

It should be noted that according to the norms of federal legislation, at least 50 per cent of the composition of electoral commissions should be formed on the basis of proposals from political parties. If candidates are nominated by parties represented in the federal and regional parliaments, the regional electoral commission is obliged to appoint them to the territorial electoral commissions. Candidates from all other parties are included in the composition of electoral commissions at the discretion of the Regional Electoral Commission.

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Press Release, 8.12.2020

The Ivanovo branch of Yabloko relaunches the work of its public reception office after a break caused by coronavirus restrictions at the address: office 106, per. Posadsky 4, Ivanovo.

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Press Release, 7.12.2020

The Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma submitted a package of amendments for the second reading of the Moscow city budget for 2021 and the planning period of 2022-2023. A significant part of the amendments concerns allocation of funds for subsidies to organisations and individual entrepreneurs affected by restrictions due to COVID-19 lockdown. According to Yabloko, Moscow could allocate this money to help businesses to survive if it gave up senseless transport expenses and payment for the Mayor’s Office publicity campaigns.

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Press Release, 6.12.2020

A criminal case under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Intentional infliction of minor harm to health”) was opened against Artyom Gelfanov, a member of the Bashkirian branch of Yabloko and an activist of the StopKambarka ecological movement.

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Press Release, 4.12.2020

Yabloko municipal deputy Maxim Gongalsky is elected head of the Ramenki municipal district in Moscow. Ramenki became the third district of Moscow headed by Yabloko: municipal deputy Yelena Rusakova heads the Gagarinsky district, and municipal deputy Andrey Morev chairs the Yakimanka district municipal council.

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POLITICAL ENTROPY (Chapter 2)
Digital technologies and the globalisation of disorder

As a series of events sent shockwaves globally, a large-scale process proceeded in the background imperceptibly, with the creation of new forms and methods to manage social phenomena, to all intents and purposes representing the birth of a new type of political system.

It has been clear to everyone that political systems in Western countries have started showing signs of strain during the past decades — and have been malfunctioning. Externally, this was manifested in the inability of political systems to effectively counter manipulation by forces and factional groups extraneous to the previous balance of interests.

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Press Release, 2.12.2020

Photo: Sofia Pugachyova and her lawyer Yelena Mayatnikova

In September 2019, two Yabloko activists and deputies – 38-year-old Sofya Pugachyova from Novorzhev and 59-year-old Svetlana Vasilkova from Pustoshka won elections and became heads of districts. However, representatives of the ruling United Russia party began to interfere with their performance of their duties, among other things, United Russia deputies decided to give “bad” marks to Yabloko’s heads of districts for their activities, so that to dismiss them from their posts despite their due diligence and good implementation of their duties.

On 30 November, the Pushkinogorsk District Court fully satisfied the claim submitted by Sofia Pugachyova, head of the Novorzhevsky district, elected in 2019 from Yabloko, to the Council of Deputies of the Novorzhevsky District. Pugachyova claimed that the decision by the Council of Deputies on recognition of her performance unsatisfactory was politically motivated and unjust.

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Press Release, 2.12.2020

Photo (from left to right): Magomed Mutsolgov and Ruslan Mutsolgov

Magomed Mutsolgov, public figure, journalist and human rights activist, forwarded an appeal to Tatyana Moskalkova, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Valery Fadeyev, Chairman of the Council on Civil Society Development and Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, Andrei Babushkin, Chairman of the Standing Commission on Assistance to the Public Monitoring Commission of the Reform of the Penitentiary System and Prevention of Offenses of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, and Ibragim Tzechoev,  Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Ingushetia, asking their assistance in protection of human rights of himself, his brother Ruslan Mutsolgav, leader of the Ingush branch of Yabloko, and members of their families.

Magomed Mutsolgov writes that “on 28 November 28, at about 7 o’clock in the morning, my family and the family of my brother Ruslan Mutsolgov, Chairman of the Ingush regional branch of the Yabloko party, as well as the adjacent streets, were surrounded by heavy armored vehicles and numerous fighters of special operation forces. For several hours, his house was blocked, officers of the Department of Internal Affairs for the city of Karabulak, a district commissioner were summoned to the scene, in addition, the security forces asked the neighbours exactly which houses we and our families lived in, when they last saw Ruslan, and whether they knew his phone number. By coincidence, Ruslan was not at home, and in his absence the law enforcement did not break the gates and, without waiting for his return, left at about 10:30 a.m. My absence from home at this time wasa due to my being outside the country. In the spring of 2019, at the insistence of my family and friends, I decided to leave the country so as not to provoke the security forces and not become another victim of the reprisals launched in the republic.”

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Press Release, 2.12.2020

The Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Karelia admitted that during the so-called expeditions of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), established by Vladimir Putin’s decree and chaired by ex-Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, to the place of mass burial of Stalin’s victims in Sandarmokh the remains of twenty people were exhumed, and not seventeen, as reported previously. This is indicated in the response of the Investigative Committee to the appeal of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia from Yabloko – Emilia Slabunova and Ivan Gusev.

The Russian Military Historical Society made two expeditions to Sandarmokh, trying to prove that this mass burial is not a burial place of Stalin’s victims shot in Sandarmokh during Great Terror in 1937-1938, but was a place of burial of prisoners of war – the Red Army soldiers and officers – kept in Finnish concentration camps and killed and buried there in 1941-1944. The legitimacy of the expeditions raised many questions from journalists, human rights activists and historians. Many historians and researchers regard the situation around Sandarmokh as a political campaign by the Russian authorities targeted at silencing or revising the history of Stalin’s reprisals, indicating that the purpose of searching for the remnants of Soviet prisoners of war at the site of the memorial cemetery of Stalin’s victims (when the names of many  victims were found out and confirmed) represented shifting the emphasis, replacing and ousting the memory of the state’s terror against its citizens.

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Grigory Yavlinsky’s website, 1.12.2020

The year 2020 is drawing to a close. One can only imagine what will come next. According to Deutsche Bank strategists, the era of globalisation, which has lasted for almost four decades, is coming to an end and will be replaced by the “age of disorder”¹. Numerous unpredictable events and potential divergent paths lie ahead, and, as they say, no one knows which way we will go. However, even developments today are to a large extent indicative. For example, in public discourse pent-up demand for security is strengthening compared to the desire for freedom. From the state’s perspective, this translates into the tightening of controls, which have clearly been enjoying more public understanding, if not outright support. Tolerance of everyday restrictions and interference in private life has increased, inter alia, amongst the higher strata of society. This may also be true of political restrictions.

The value of the inviolability of private life is being degraded in line with the manipulation of individual interests and requirements which are being created artificially: this is a new trend which would appear to be here for the long haul. And all this is happening against a surge in populism: political systems appear unable to consolidate to block populist politicians, whereas the ability of the traditional elite to retain their role as a politically responsible class has weakened significantly.

POLITICAL ENTROPY
Digital technologies and the globalisation of disorder

• INTRODUCTION
• ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF THE NEW AGE
• THE PANDEMIC AND POLITICS
• INFORMATION OCHLOCRACY
• THE NEW AGE ECONOMY
• MASS PROTESTS AND THE MODERN WORLD
• WHAT SHOULD BE DONE? INSTITUTIONALISATION OF VALUES 

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Condolences by Nikolai Rybakov, 1.12.2020

On 1 December, Irina Antonova, President of the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum passed away at the age of 98. She would have turned 99 in March. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov expresses condolences on behalf of the party and himself:

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Press Release, 30.11.2020

The first design code in the Leningrad Region that will change the look of the city will be developed in the city of Murino, which borders on St. Petersburg. This was announced on 26 November by Dmitry Kuzmin, head of the Murino urban settlement and a member of the Yabloko party, during the launch of the project.

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Press Release, 30.11.2020

On Thursday, December 3, the Yabloko Party University will hold a Zoom-lecture by ex-Chair of Yabloko Emilia Slabunova on “The Russian School: Between the Past and the Future”. The lecture will start at 19:00.

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Press Release, 27.11.2020

Photo: Deputies of the Pskov Regional Assembly in the first reading adopted the draft regional budget for 2021 and for the planning period of 2022 and 2023 / Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov region Administration

Pskov parliamentarians considered in the first reading the draft budget of the region for 2021. Lev Shlosberg, deputy of the Pskov Regional Assembly from Yabloko, noted the excessive dependence of the regional budget on the federal Russian budget, and also drew attention to a twofold decrease in the planned non-repayable receipts from the federal budget to the regional budget compared to the current year, the state debt of almost 19 billion roubles by 80 per cent comprised of loans from commercial banks, and the desire of the regional administration to overestimate the region’s own revenues in order to artificially lower the budget deficit figure.

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Press Release, 27.11.2020

The Tula branch of Yabloko submitted candidacies of the party representiatives to the key eleven territorial electoral commissions of the region. The respective electoral commissions cover 75 per cent of the population of the Tula region. Within a month, the regional electoral commission should complete the formation of  electoral commissions.

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Press Release, 27.11.2020

On 24 November, on the threashold of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) and the launch of this year’s international campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence” Yabloko Gender Faction conducted international on-line conference “Situation with Protection of Women’s Rights in the situation of COVID lockdowns. International Experience”. The conference was held on the Zoom platform.

Nikolai Rybakov, Chairman of the Yabloko party, opened the conference. The conference moderators were Olga Radayeva, lawyer and First Deputy Chair of the Gender Faction of Yabloko, and Galina Mikhaleva, Professor of the Russian State Humanities University and Chair of the Gender Faction of the Yabloko party.

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Press Release, 26.11.2020

Chairman of the Yabloko Party Nikolai Rybakov sent an appeal to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, in which he urges the head of government to amend Decree No. 1762 on the state measures of social support and to increase payments to health workers in the situation of the COVID pandemic, as well as to extend payments to support staff of medical instituations.

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Press Release, 26.11.2020

Photo: Vladimir Dorokhov, Chairman of the Tula branch of Yabloko, at a picket against the amendments to the Constitution, on 23 June, 2020

A year after Yabloko’s appeal to the Public Prosecutor’s Offices of 43 Russian Federation subjects with a demand to bring regional laws on rallies in line with the Constitution, the necessary amendments were adopted in 26 regions.

In 2019, the Constitutional Court adopted a resolution that effectively prohibited the regional authorities from turning down the requests of the organisers of public events [on a getting a permission to conduct such events] referring to the proximity of actions to government buildings, interferance with transport or hindering access to social institutions.

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Statement on the resumption of the activities of the Public Constitutional Council

Novaya Gazeta, 25.11.2020

The Public Constitutional Council, which we established in January 2020 in response to the President’s initiative to amend the Constitution of the Russian Federation, warned at the same time that the adoption of the proposed amendments to the Basic Law of the country would lead to further “resetting to zero” of all public institutions.

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Press Release, 25.11.2020

Photo: Anna Karulicheva, municipal deputy from Yabloko, St.Peterburg

Yekaterina Kuznetsova, Chair the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko, issued a statement demanding from Governor Alexander Beglov to stop the attempts to deprive Yabloko municipal deputy Anna Karulicheva of her mandate in the Narvsky District Municipality.

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