Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Anna Cherepanova, deputy of the Duma of Veliky Novgorod and Chair of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko, turned to the Public Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigative Committee and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. She demands a check on the fact of damage to the monument One Thousand Years of Russia as a result of chemical treatment with a solution of chlorine.
“This is a display of extreme idiocy. The military from the chemical protection unit poured chlorine over the Novgorod symbol. What for? Why? For the sake of PR and a beautiful picture in the media, illustrating the process of disinfection of the city? ” the Chair of the Novgorod Yabloko is perplexed.
“Not only is this a completely meaningless action, but experts say that it has damaged the world famous monument. Then it should be qualified as vandalism with the corresponding legal consequences,” Anna Cherepanova says.
On Tuesday, 19 May, the Social Democratic Faction of the Yabloko Party, Yabloko’s Gender Faction, and the Committee for Combating Xenophobia held an online conference “The situation with Migrants in Russia during the Pandemic”.
The situation with migrants has become much more complicated during the pandemic, and even removal of restrictions on work in a number of regions and a number of industries did not eliminate many of the difficulties.
Previously, mass media pointed to indications of fraud in the tender
Press Release, 20.05.2020
Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre demanded that the Investigative Committee check the heads of the State Public Institution Information City for a crime under Article 285 of the Criminal Code. According to mass media reports, before that the contractor in the development of the Social Monitoring tracing application had written the technical task for another tracing application for the Mayor’s Office which had been bought by the Mayor’s Office to control the builders in the Mayor’s Moscow renovation project (building new housing instead of pulled down houses built in 1960s).
The Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Yabloko party appealed to Gleb Nikitin, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, with a demand to dismiss David Melik-Guseynov, Deputy Governor and Minister of Healthcare of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
Earlier, the Minister published a post on his social networks criticising doctors of the Sormovskaya emergency medical station, who were outraged by the government’s failure to fulfill promises on additional payments to medical workers. The Minister of Healthcare called them provocateurs, intimidated them and threatened medical personnel with police.
Despite the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Leinigrad Region in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration of the Priozersky municipal district of the Leningrad Region intends to hold public hearings on the recultivation of the local landfill. District officials turned down the proposal of the Yabloko branch in the Leningrad Region to postpone the hearing until the coronavirus restrictions were completely lifted. Public hearings are scheduled for May 25.
On 18 May, employees of the Ivanovo ambulance station with the support of the Ivanovo branch of Yabloko filed a complaint with the regional Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Governor of the Ivanovo region. The appeal was signed by about 30 people. Drivers and paramedics of the ambulance station complain that only a few received the promised allowances for working with COVID-positive patients.
On 28 May, Andrei Babushkin’s online lecture “Police Actions During the Pandemic” will be held at Yabloko Party University. The lecture will begin at 16.00.
Andrei Babushkin is member of the Federal Bureau of the Yabloko party, Chairman of the Committee for Civil Rights and member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of Russia.
Alexander Gnezdilov comments for the influential Japanese newspaper Putin’s record drop in popularity
Press Release, 18.05.2020
Alexander Gnezdilov, member of the Yabloko Party’s Federal Political Committee, gave a commentary for the influential Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun for an article where the newspaper’s special correspondent investigated the causes of a serious drop in President Vladimir Putin’s rating and a noticeable increase in opposition moods among young Russians.
On 18 May, Andrei Avtoneyev, Chairman of the Ivanovo regional branch of the Yabloko party, and employees of the emergency medical station, filed a complaint with the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Ivanovo Region.
Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, turned to St.Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov with a proposal to take urgent measures to remedy the situation in St. Petersburg when citizens who have been diagnosed with a coronavirus infection should wait for the ambulance for 10-11 hours after the call.
On May 15, the International Day of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service, Ruslan Zinatullin, Chairman of the regional branch of the Yabloko party in Tatarstan, held a series of one-person pickets (that do not require any permissions from the authorities) against the conscription slavery in Russia and against human rights violations in the Russian army. The picketing was held by the military commissariat in the Volga and Vakhitovsky districts of Kazan.
Open letter of the Kaliningrad branch of Yabloko, 13.05.2020
On May 11-13, 2020, a number of media published news under provocative headlines and texts about the annual action in memory of the victims of the Second World War conducted by our colleague Sergei Dustin. These publications, together with the video, became the reason for the preliminary investigation of Dustin’s actions by the Investigative Committee under Article 354.1 “Rehabilitation of Nazism”.
Meanwhile, the essence of Sergei’s memorial action is that on May 9 he laid flowers first to the mass burial of Soviet soldiers who died in April 1945, and then to the international memorial burial of victims of the Second World War in Baltiysk. The video published in social networks and the above media clearly show his speech that the Second World War brought suffering to all peoples, not only Europe, but the whole world. The Soviet Union suffered terrible, impossible losses. For the German people, this tragedy is no less terrible than for other countries, including the USSR… All these people are victims of the criminal policy of unleashing wars… and the people (war criminals) who are to blame for unleashing the Second World War are worthy of no memory…
On Tuesday, 19 May, the Social Democratic Faction of the Yabloko Party, Yabloko’s Gender Faction, and the Committee for Combating Xenophobia will hold an online conference “The situation with Migrants in Russia during the Pandemic”. The conference will begin at 16.00 MSK.
On 13 May, the State Duma adopted in the second and third reading the bills toughening election legislation and providing additional opportunities for distortion of election results.
In particular, the new norms complicate registration of candidates through collection of signatures, contribute to the expansion of the practices of voting outside the designated premises, as well as apply postal and remote electronic voting. In addition, changes in legislation directly affect the right to participate in elections for new categories of citizens.
On 13 May, the Russian government introduced to the State Duma a package of amendments to the Law “On Police”, unreasonably expanding the powers of the police and threatening the rights of citizens. The Yabloko party considers the adoption of this bill unacceptable.
In particular, it is proposed to introduce a rule exempting a police officer from liability “for actions committed in the performance of duties assigned to the police and in connection with the exercise of the rights granted to the police”. The amendments grant police officers the right to open fire on citizens not during an attack, but in the case of actions regarded as a “threat of attack”. It is proposed to exempt the police from the obligation to introduce themselves and explain the claims and the reasons for the detention, “when it is necessary to immediately stop the crime”. Police are given the right to open cars, virtually, without any reason, as well as the right to cordon off or block territories, houses and buildings, and search citizens and their cars inside the cordon.
Today two resonant bills were submitted to the State Duma: on voting by mail and on the right of policemen to open cars. So, under the auspices of the fight against the epidemic, the authorities take the most vile steps – legitimisation of police lawlessness and creation of the basis for election fraud. And the law on voting by mail has already been adopted immediately in the second and third readings.
The Ivanovo regional branch of the Yabloko party appealed to the Governor and deputies of the Ivanovo Regional Duma with a demand to amend the regional budget. Namely, to redistribute more than 21 million roubles allocated to mass events and festivals, in favour of doctors and medical workers, population and the affected business.
The Ryazan branch of the Yabloko asked Yelena Sorokina, head of the Ryazan administration, to publicly explain how the money allocated before the COVID-19 epidemic for recreation of children during summer holidays would be spent, as children’s summer activities were banned due to the pandemic. A separate issue was what happened to the already held auctions that had determined the contractors.
The Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko sent an appeal to the Deputy Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Rector of the Medical University on the inadmissibility to forcibly involve medical students to work with patients with coronavirus.
Yabloko releases a documentary “Boris Misnik. A man from Monchegorsk”. It is dedicated to one of the leaders of our party – Boris Grigoryevich Misnik.
In the 1990s, Boris Misnik headed the Russian Mining and Metallurgical Union and was a State Duma deputy from the Yabloko party. The childhood years of Boris Misnik fell on the Second World War period. He and his family were evacuated to Sakhalin. Most of his life has been connected with the North, where he was born and worked for many years.
