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 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.
The Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies have considered four bills on amendments to the Constitution of Russia. Parliamentary representatives from the Yabloko faction Lev Shlosberg and Arthur Gaiduk made a proposal to the Regional Assembly to put forward such legislative initiatives to the State Duma of Russia. The voted of the Regional Assembly resulted in rejecting all four legislative initiatives.
On 20 February, the Duma of the Astrakhan Region considered constitutional amendments developed by the Public Constitutional Council and introduced by Yabloko’s deputy Dmitry Anufriev.
The amendments were combined into four separate laws for each thematic block: the President, the Federal Assembly, the Government and the judicial system. From eight to 12 deputies voted for each of the laws, and from five to eight parliamentarians out of 58 abstained, despite the fact that Yabloko was represented in the regional parliament by only one deputy.
Photo: Nizhny Novgorod. Russia. Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov, Governor of Nizhny Novgorod, at the economic session. Photo by ITAR-TASS / Nikolai Moshkov
Five years ago, Boris Nemtsov was killed. A year before that, Crimea was already annexed, the war in Donbass was gaining momentum with might and main. However, the demonstrative killing by the Kremlin’s walls of an opposition politician, an uncompromising critic of authoritarian power and personal opponent of Vladimir Putin became the starting point for subsequent troubles and crimes. Five years after the murder of Nemtsov:
– thousands of civilians died in the civil war in Syria as a result of actions involving the Russian army; over a hundred Russian servicemen returned home in coffins (according to the Russian Ministry of Defense);
– the Kremlin-backed war in eastern Ukraine involving Russian mercenaries claimed thousands of lives; dozens of thousands of people were injured, almost a million turned into refugees (according to the UN);
– the number of political prisoners in Russia has grown almost sevenfold – from 46 in 2015 to 314 political prisoners as of the end of 2019 (according to the Memorial human rights centre).
The Ambassador of Russia and diplomats of our country must take part in this ceremony.
The Ambassador is obliged to express his gratitude to the Czech Republic for a gesture of goodwill – naming of the square in Prague after the Russian statesman killed in Moscow five years ago.
In the Ambassador’s speech should announce that the authorities have studied the OSCE report on the Nemtsov murder case and that conclusions will be drawn from it soon.
A picket in memory of Boris Nemtsov will be held in Oryol on 29 February. This was announced by Sergei Zaitsev, the organiser of the action and Chairman of the Orlov branch of Yabloko. The commemorative action will begin at 11.00.
On 22 February, a mass picket was held in Chelyabinsk as part of the Constitution of Free People campaign organised by the Chelyabinsk Yabloko. About one hundred people took part in the picket.
Emilia Slabunova, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and MP of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, asked Igor Krasnov, Public Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, to check the legality of the criminal case against Abdulmumin Gadzhiyev, journalist of the Chernovik (Rough Notes) newspaper. A criminal case against the journalist was opened in June 2019 on charges of financing terrorism. Since 14 June, 2019, he has been in custody.
Photo (from left to right): Ivan Bolshakov, Nikolai Rybakov and Valery Goryachev.
The Federal Bureau of the Yabloko Party proposes to include into the Constitution a clause running that torture is a serious crime. A complaint of torture should be the basis for the immediate initiation of criminal proceedings. A verdict can not be announced while the investigation into the torture has not been completed. Such rules should be contained in the Basic Law. In addition, Yabloko opposed lifelong immunity for former presidents.
On 17 February, Nizhny Novgorod Yabloko applied for getting a permission to hold March in Memory of Boris Nemtsov for the third time. It is planned that the march will take place in the form of a public event – a procession along Rozhdestvenskaya street, followed by a rally Markin square. Earlier, the administration of Nizhny Novgorod twice refused to give a permission for the commemorative action.
Irina Sotnikova, nurse of Kemerovo Children’s Clinic No. 1, was announced that she would be fired in April. Formally, a nurse with forty years of experience was informed that her job would be cut. However, in informal conversations, she was informed that her the dismissal was associated with the activity of her husband Yevgeny Artemyev, member of the Regional Council of the Kemerovo branch of Yabloko and organiser of the March of the memory of Boris Nemtsov in Kemerovo.
Konstantin Aranovsky, Judge of the Constitutional Court, called the USSR an illegitimate state, and the Soviet state bodies “illegal party-state power bodies”, which cannot be regarded as “legal predecessors of constitutional state power”.
On 15 February, the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko launched its regional campaign “The Constitution of Free People” at a rally in Magnitogorsk, the Chelyabinsk region. The rally was organised by Kira Belaya, member of Magnitogorsk Yabloko.
16 February marks 89 years of Viktor Leonidovich Sheinis, member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party. Nikolay Rybakov, Yabloko Chairman, congratulates Viktor Sheinis on behalf of the party:
Dear Viktor Leonidovich! You are an outstanding person, one of the main authors of the Russian Constitution, which enshrines fundamental rights and freedoms for the citizens of our country. But such are Russian historical algorithms that today you, together with the third generation of Yabloko members, have to defend the spirit of the Basic Law.
