On the eve of the Victory Day of May 9, activists and leaders
of the YABLOKO party paid tribute to the soldiers and victims
of the Second World War laying a wreath and flowers at the
Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin
wall in Moscow.

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Seminar “The Future of EU-Russian Relations – The Liberal Viewpoint”. Helsinki, April 29, 2013

Keynote speech by Grigory Yavlinsky “Russia in Ten Years”

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A traditional May Day Democratic Manifestation was held
along Nevsky Prospekt and ended with a rally at Konnyushennaya
Square. This year the main slogan of the manifestation was
“For Russia Free from Political Reprisals and Religious
Obscurantism!”

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Seminar “The Future of EU-Russian Relations – The Liberal Viewpoint”. Helsinki, April 29, 2013

Keynote speech by Grigory Yavlinsky “Russia in Ten Years”

Liberal International 190th Executive. Published on April 26, 2013

…But I should note that the reaction of Vladimir Putin’s regime to the mass protests was not only intensification of reprisals. Putin responded to the challenge with a specific state ideology based on aggressive clericalism and complete denial of the liberal values. This is a significant difference from the policies of ex President Medvedev who often appealed to the liberal values.
Orthodoxy has been exploited by the regime in a very specific way. The emphasis is laid on its contraposition to the Western values and way of life. This “sacred resource” provides the authorities an ideological basis for criticism of the human rights concept, as well as political systems based on respect for civil liberties…
…New evidence of the growth of aggressive clericalism has been emerging every day. The Russian parliament adopted a law envisaging five years of imprisonment for the injury of religious beliefs and feelings. However, the law protects only “traditional confessions” and Russian
Orthodoxy in the first place. It is obvious that opponents of clericalisation of the state will become the first victims of this vague norm based on subjective estimates…

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Yesterday, representatives of democratic parties and organisations gathered for their second meeting in one of Moscow clubs to discuss nomination of a single list in the Moscow City Duma elections.

Representatives of from the YABLOKO party and YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin, RPR-Parnas (Vladimir Ryzhkov), Democratic Choice (Vladimir Milov), the Civil Initiative (Nikolai Alekseyev), the Solidarity (Michael Schneider) and the Coordinating Council of the opposition (Gennady Gudkov) participated in the meeting. This time new participants joined the meeting: representatives of the The Party of December 5 (Denis Bilunov and Sergei Davidis), the Civil Initiative, the Civil Federation movement and The White Ribbon joined the consultations.

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On April 22, the Vladikavkaz Court declared unlawful the refusal of the Ministry of Justice Department in North Ossetia-Alania Republic to register the regional branch of the YABLOKO party in the Republic.

“The refusal of the Ministry of Justice Department in North Ossetia-Alania Republic to register the regional branch of the YABLOKO party should be recognised unlawful and cancelled,” runs the decisions of the court.

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Alexander Shishlov, Ombudsperson in St. Petersburg and YABLOKO Bureau member, made his first report in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg.
On the whole he received 1643 written appeals, complaints and requests from citizens of St. Petersburg in 2012.
Most complaints referred to housing problems. Over half of them (52.3 per cent) dealt with failure to get housing from the government’s fund, 22 per cent dealt with housing property title, 10.7 per cent with maintenance of the housing, 9.8 per cent with housing construction and 5.2 per cent with bills on utility services.
Tenants from privatized hostels, hoodwinked housing investors and veterans came to the Ombudsman’s office. Most of them were provided help or legal advice.

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On April 17, another rally organised by Vladimir Putin’s
supporters took place by the office of the Krasnodar branch
of YABLOKO in the South of Russia. It is already the 15th
such rally held under the slogan “Hands off from Vladimir
Putin!” taking place by YABLOKO’s office.

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Press Release, April 11, 2013

On April 10, the YABLOKO party held a meeting for representatives of democratic parties and organizations. The meeting discussed YABLOKO’s proposal on compiling of a single list of democratic candidates for the Moscow City Duma elections 2014. Earlier YABLOKO had proposed to give half of places on its party list to the candidates from democratic forces.
Members of the Democratic Choice party and their leader Vladimir Milov, representatives of the Solidarity movement and RPR-PARNAS, activists from Grazhdanskaya Initsiativa (Civil Initiative) and their leader Andrei Nechayev, Gennady Gudkov , member of the opposition’s Coordination Council, and Ilya Ponomaryov, deputy of the State Duma, took part in the meeting. Opening the meeting YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin spoke about YABLOKO’s initiative on creating a broad democratic and civil coalition for the Moscow City Duma elections. YABLOKO proposed to conduct primaries, where all the Muscovites could participate; whereas the winners in the primaries would be included into the YABLOKO party list of candidates and in single-mandate electoral districts. Sergei Mitrokhin emphasized that if the parties reached an agreement, YABLOKO would ready to take their representatives on the “party’s” part of the electoral list…

Civil funeral service in memory of journalist and public
activist Mikhail Beketov took place at the House of Journalists
today. Mikhail Beketov was a Russian journalist who combated
against crime and corruption in the city of Khimki (including
defence of Khimki Forest which had to be cut due the construction
of the Moscow–Saint Petersburg highway).

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The St.Petersburg branch of YABLOKO nominated 1550 candidates to the electoral commissions in all the districts of the city. The registration of documents in the electoral commissions is ending today.
“All of our candidates are well educated and active citizens and their main goal is to ensure compliance with the law at their electoral districts. Unfortunately YABLOKO’s representatives were not welcome at all the territorial electoral commissions” said Olga Pokrovskaya, member of the city electoral commission.
In particular, one of the territorial electoral commissions demanded statements of income from YABLOKO’s candidates (which is not envisaged by the law), another commission demanded that the copies of the work record books should be changed as allegedly they had not been properly notorised.

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On April 3 Acad. Alexei Yabloko, Chair of YABLOKO’s Green Russia faction and member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee, delivered a public lecture “Environmental problems of Russia” in the Kemerovo business center and held an informal meeting with representatives of public and scientific organisations during his trip to the Kemerovo region.

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Press Release, March 21, 2013

“Maxim Petlin can be considered a political prisoner,” YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin commented on the sentence to Maxim Petlin, leader of the Sverdlovsk Region branch of YABLOKO and deputy of the Yekaterinburg City Duma. Read more »

Press Release, March 2, 2013

YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin called the participants of the Social Manifestation to “change the authorities at the next elections to the Moscow City Duma,” rather than ask the Mayor of Moscow team for some “handouts”. “We offer the entire civil society to unite for the Moscow City Duma elections and agree to provide our party candidates list for this purpose, and we give half of the list for civil society activists,” Mitrokhin said at a rally on Sakharov Square.

Mitrokhin showed YABLOKO’s Manifesto 2014 to the rally.

“If we can do it, than we will win the mayoral election. And then we’ll come and say Sergei Sobyanin’s (the present Moscow Mayor) team: Moscow is not your city. This is our city! ” said YABLOKO leader.

Mitrokhin also said that the policies of the Moscow authorities was “authoritarian and incompetent in many areas, but extremely self-confident and based on the most profound contempt for the Muscovites”. “The Sobyanin’s team acts as if they came to some kindergarten rather than Moscow. They know what is better for us, and we should wait with our mouths open when they bring happiness to us,” Mitrokhin said.

Clearing off small businesses in favour of large networks, depriving migrants of their rights to improve their living conditions in favour of investors, tiling [the entire Moscow], construction works in the parks, mindless expansion of roads – here is this “happiness’, but not for the Muscovites, it is for officials and oligarchs at the expense of suffering of ordinary people.

According to Mitrokhin, today each Muscovite should ask a question “what is happening and why?” And give an answer until it is not too late.

The rally on Sakharov Square was preceded by a manifestation along the boulevards. YABLOKO’s column together with other political forces columns marched from Pushkin Square along the boulevards to Sakharov Square. Muscovites who know YABLOKO well as the party helped them to stand up for their rights, joined the party column.

YABLOKO activists held a banner “The Moscow authority must be controlled by Muscovites!”

YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin heading the column

Galina Mikhalyova, First Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO

More photographs

See also:

Human Rights

Freedom of Assembly

Elections to the Moscow City Duma 2014

Press Release, February 17, 2013

The Conference of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO adopted a Manifesto on compiling of a list candidates for the Moscow City Duma elections (which are to take place in 2014) from united democratic opposition. According to the Manifesto, half of the candidates in the party list will be given to civil activists and representatives from other political forces. Muscovites will determine the nominees in the primaries.

“Moscow has accumulated a critical mass of active people, they awoke from the “sleep’ during Putin’s 2000s, and they want to act. They do realise that their children will not have any normal human prospects in this country without changing of the political situation in the country, that is why they want to go into politics. We give them such an opportunity,” YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin stated at the Conference.

“A year ago we promised at the rallies that we would propose a definite political mechanism to address different problems. The adopted Manifesto is a direct and earnest answer to all the questions: what people who manifested at Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Prospect and participated in other mass opposition rallies should do now,” said Grigory Yavlinsky, YABLOKO founder and member of the Political Committee. “The time of general discussions is over. It’s time to act,” he stressed.

Half of the seats in the party list of candidates, as required by law, will be taken by YABLOKO members. The rest of candidates will be determined via primaries that will be held in all 22 electoral territories. A primaries winner will either top the list of candidates in the electoral territory or will become the only candidate running from the party in a single mandate constituency. Those who come second at the primaries can work in the campaign of the primaries winner and, if he wins the election, become his aids.

The Manifesto highlights that only people sharing democratic values can take part in the primaries. “Nationalists and communists are unacceptable for us”, runs the document.

Running from the party, the candidates are exempted from the collection of signatures. The party guarantees its support to all the candidates running in a single mandate constituencies.

Registration for the primaries is already opened. In March, the rules of the primaries will be discussed and in October, the rules will be approved. Voting at primaries is scheduled for next May.

Elections to the Moscow City Duma will be held on September 8, 2014.

See also:

Elections to the Moscow City Duma, 2014

By Grigory Yavlinsky, The Moscow Times, February 19, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama took his second oath of office on Jan. 20. The following Sunday, also in Washington, Metropolitan Tikhon was enthroned as the primate of the Orthodox Church in America. Read more »