Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
The decision on Putin’s irremovability as President of the Russian Federation, adopted at his proposal by the State Duma today, represents usurpation of power. This decision is unconstitutional.
The cancellation of the presidential terms of Vladimir Putin, that is, allowing Putin to be in the post of President for another 12 or 16 years under the pretext of amending the Constitution, is nothing more than a gross violation of the current Basic Law and cynical neglect of Russian laws.
Photo: Alexander Gontcharenko picketing the Altai Territory Legislative Assembly in Barnaul
On Thursday, March 12, members of the Yabloko party are conducting one-person pickets (that do not require any permission from the authorities) against the reset of the presidential term of Vladimir Putin and other constitutional amendments introduced by the President. The pickets are held on the day of the approval of Putin’s constitutional amendments by regional parliaments. Yabloko conducts one-person pickets by the buildings of legislative assemblies and regional dumas in more than 50 regions. In Yekaterinburg, Sergei Khorenzhenko, Chairman of the Sverdlovsk branch of Yabloko, was detained at a picket by the police despite that fact that it was one-person picket that did not require a permission from the authorities.
On Thursday, March 12, members of the Yabloko party will picket against the reset of the presidential term of Vladimir Putin and other constitutional amendments introduced by the President. The pickets will be held on the day of the approval of Putin’s constitutional amendments by regional parliaments. Yabloko will picket the buildings of legislative assemblies and regional dumas in 47 regions:
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov picketing by the State Duma
Today, on 11 March, Yabloko holds pickets by the State Duma and the Federation Council against usurpation of power by Vladimir Putin. It is expected that the parliament will finally approve amendments to the Constitution today, including resetting of the presidential term for Vladimir Putin.
Tomorrow, on March 11, the Yabloko party will hold a series of one-person pickets (that do not require a permission from the authorities) by the State Duma (Okhotny Ryad 1) and the Federation Council (Bolshaya Dmitrovka 26) against the reset of Putin’s presidential terms and other constitutional amendments introduced by the President.
Yabloko leaders on early parliamentary elections and new presidential election rules
Press Release, 10.03.2020
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov at the picket near the State Duma on March 10, 2020
Yabloko leaders held pickets outside the parliament building during today’s consideration by the State Duma of Putin’s constitutional amendments in the second reading. They protested both against the President’s proposals and against the unlawful procedure for their approval. Meanwhile, the deputies have already proposed holding early State Duma elections and resetting the presidential term for Vladimir Putin.
Galina Mikhaleva, Chairwoman of the Yabloko Party’s Gender Faction, spoke at the round table on gender equality issues with the topic “Socio-Economic Transformation in Russia (1990 – 2020) and the Status of Women”. The round table was held as part of the Sixth International Film Festival “Eight Women” with the support of the Zhournalistka club (Woman-Journalist) co-chaired by Nadezhda Azhgikhina.
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent an appeal to Dmitry Makhonin, acting Governor of the Perm Territory, as well as the Dmitry Samoilov, Mayor of Perm, with a proposal to rename the square of Rosalia Zemlyachka to Boris Nemtsov Square.
Earlier, participants of the Perm rally in memory of Boris Nemtsov, which was held on February 29, made a similar proposal.
Statement by the Bureau of the Regional Council of Altai branch of Yabloko, 5.03.2020
Russia is experiencing a political crisis associated with an attempt to change the spirit and letter of the Constitution, growth of reprisals in the country, [all this] against the backdrop of ongoing foreign policy adventurism (in eastern Ukraine and Syria) and stagnation in the economy. The social consequences of this are most noticeable in the regions subsidized from the state budget, such as the Altai Territory, where real incomes of the population have been falling for the seventh year.
The President submitted to the State Duma a package of his amendments to the Constitution. In a week, the presidential amendments will be approved by the deputies, then by the Federation Council and regional legislative assemblies, and on 22 April they will be supported by a majority in the All-Russian plebiscite.
Video: Speech by Grigory Yavlinsky at a meeting of the Public Constitutional Council, February 2020
However, Putin’s amendments are aimed at consolidating of a fundamentally different concept of the Russian state in the Basic Law of the country. Instead of the democratic socially oriented state stipulated by the current Constitution, an unlawful model of a closed nomenclature-bureaucratic corporate state of a mafia type with the ideology of demagogic patriotism is unlawfully imposed on the country.
On 29 February, the Bashkirian branch of Yabloko took part in a rally of Ufa residents against unreasonably high prices for heating. Over 500 people took part in the action.
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent appeals to the Mayors of Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Sochi, as well as to the Governors of St. Petersburg, the Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl regions and the Krasnodar Territory with a proposal to give one of the objects in these cities the name of Boris Nemtsov.
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent a package of Yabloko amendments to the Constitution to the President, Speakers of the State Duma and the Federation Council, as well as to the heads of relevant committees of both houses of the parliament. It included four bills that the party had previously submitted through regional legislative assemblies, as well as two new laws on constitutional amendments regarding prohibition of mercenarism and the transition to a contract army, and fixing in the Constitution that torture is a grave crime.
The Public Constitutional Council and the Yabloko party launched the web-site vote.const2020.ru, where one can take a test and find out whose amendments to the Constitution are better for one: those by President Putin or representatives of civil society.
The test consists of 15 pairs of cards with 15 amendments on the following topics: the powers and terms of office of the President, the structure of the state bodies of power, formation and resignation of the government, appointment of Prime Minister, formation of the Federation Council and the Constitutional Court, appointment of judges, role of international law, court jurors and liability for torture.
Photo: Grigory Yavlinsky holding a placard “Freedom to Kotov!”
The court of cassation has overturned the sentence to Konstantin Kotov [political prisoner of the Moscow “riots” case], the case was sent for revision, and Kotov was sent to a pre-trial detention centre for two months. Kotov did not commit any crime. A sentence of four years in a penal colony is unlawful. “I have bailed and am bailing for Konstantin Kotov. Freedom to all political prisoners!
Today, Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov, legendary Soviet and Russian human rights activist and member of the Yabloko party, celebrates his 90th birthday.
A dissident, political prisoner, State Duma deputy, one of the authors of the Second Chapter of the Constitution dealing with human rights and freedoms, the first Human Rights Ombudsman in Russia – these are the main, but not all, facts of his impressive biography.
We are grateful to Sergei Kovalyov that he was with our party during all the years that were difficult for Yabloko, and in 2006 he became full member of the party and Co-Chair of the Yabloko Human Rights Faction. Until 2019, he was a member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee.
The Yabloko party participated in the actions in memory of Boris Nemtsov in many cities of Russia. Yabloko activists and supporters marched, picketed and rallied in Moscow St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Barnaul, Veliky Novgorod, Vladivostok, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Kostroma, Krasnodar, Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Oryol, Perm, Pskov, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Tambov, Tomsk, Ufa, Cheboksary, Chelyabinsk , Elista and Yaroslavl. Also members and supporters of Yabloko participated in the actions in memory of slain Russian politician abroad.
Politician and statesman Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin in Moscow on February 27, 2015. Yabloko places political responsibility for the murder on President Vladimir Putin.
More than 22,000 people took part in the Boris Nemtsov March, an action in memory of slain Putin opponent, which took place in Moscow from Strastnoy Boulevard to Academician Sakharov Prospect today. The Yabloko party formed its own column headed by the party leaders who carried a banner with the slogan “Fight for the Constitution of Freedom!”
Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko Chairman: Together with Emilia Slabunova, Sergei Mitrokhin and Grigory Yavlinsky, – all Yabloko Chairpersons are leading thr oarty column at the March in Memory of Boris Nemtsov today.
Yevgeny Artemyev, Chairman of the Kemerovo branch of the Yabloko party, appealed to the Central District Court of Kemerovo. He intends to challenge the unlawful refusal of the city administration to give a permission to a rally in memory of Boris Nemtsov in the city.
The activists of the regional branch of Yabloko note that the practice of unlawful refusals to give permissions to any protest actions in Kemerovo has been going on for several years. Earlier, activists sued the Kemerovo administration, but to no avail. This time, members of the Kemerovo branch of Yabloko intend to go up to the European Court of Human Rights.
