Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 18 January, the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, the leaders of the Yabloko party in St. Petersburg and Moscow paid tribute to the memory of the victims. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov laid flowers at the Leningrad Stele in the Alexander Garden in Moscow. Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and Coordinator of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, honoured the memory of the soldiers and the victims of the siege at the monument in Victory Square in St. Petersburg.
On 21 January the Rostov-on-Don branch of Yabloko will conduct an action of writing letters to Rusisan political prisoners. Everyone is invited to participate. The action will start at 17:00.
On 24 January, Yabloko will host an annual charity auction in support of political prisoners. The guests of the party office in Moscow and the viewers of the YouTube broadcast will be offered 19 lots provided by well-known Russian politicians, journalists and artists. All the funds raised will be used to support eight political prisoners.
The donors of the lots this year were politicians Grigory Yavlinsky, Nikolai Rybakov, Boris Vishnevsky, Lev Shlosberg, journalists Svetlana Sorokina, Pavel Lobkov and Viktor Shenderovich, film critic Zinaida Pronchenko, poet Dmitry Bykov, political strategist Pavel Dubravsky, artists Sergei Polyakov, Yevgeny Sinyutin and Yaroslav Shirogorova, the team of the independent theater “Teatr.doc”, the editors of the almanac Moloko Plus and others.
The Yabloko party has prepared a third, updated version of the Register of Repressive Laws in the Russian Federation, which has been maintained by Yabloko experts since 2019. Today it includes 62 legal acts: federal and regional laws, as well as presidential decrees.
The criteria for entering a law into the Register of repressive laws are based on an assessment of one of the respectful international or Russian structures, rather than evaluative political judgments. Such structures include the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, the Venice Commission, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation and the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.
On 19 January, leaders and activists of the Yabloko party will lay flowers at the site of the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, at Prechistenka 3 in Moscow.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were shot dead by neo-Nazis from the Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists on 19 January, 2009.
Photo: Mobilisation. / Photo by Viktor Korotayev, Kommersant
The response of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Work with Appeals from Citizens and Organisations forwarded to to Yabloko’s MP in the Pskov regional parliament Artur Gaiduk and signed by the assistant I. Alexandrov, runs:
“On 28 October, 2022, the notification and call [to military service] of citizens in the reserve was completed, the military commissariats continue to recruit military units from citizens who expressed a desire to voluntarily participate in the special military operation, as well as citizens who wish to enter military service on a contract basis. The Decree of the President of the Russian Federation2022 No. 657 of September 21 “On the announcement of partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation” goes on to be in force”.
Photo: Stanislav Shmakov / Photo from social media
The Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk held hearings on selecting a measure of restraint for Stanislav Shmakov, a civil activist and assistant to a deputy from Yabloko in the Tomsk City Duma David Avetyan. Shmakov was placed under home arrest for two months. It is reported that Shmakov is accused of damaging banners with information about support for a “special military operation” in Ukraine. The banners were placed by order of the Tomsk administration. Shmakov can be imprisoned for up to three years for damages to banners amounting to about 200,000 roubles.
Photo: Mikhail Afanasyev / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Abakan City Court extended the detention of Mikhail Afanasyev, editor of the Novy Focus online media and member of the Yabloko party, for two more months due to the fact that the Investigative Committee could not prove his guilt. This was reported in the Telegram channel of the lawyer and human rights activist Pavel Chikov.
The term of Mikhail Afanasyev’s detention would have expired on 16 January. It have been repeatedly extended by the City Court of Abakan due to the fact that the charges were drawn up with errors. The judge dismissed the two public prosecutors’ objections in support of the public prosecution. The investigation cannot prove that Afanasyev disseminated false information about the armed forces of the Russian Federation.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Vasileostrovskiy District Court of St.Petersburg returned back to the police the protocol drawn against Boris Vishnevsky, an MP of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and Yabloko Deputy Chairman. The protocol was drawn under the article on “discrediting the army” (Article 20.3.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).
The protocol was returned to the police in accordance with Article 29.4 Paragraph 4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, as a document drawn up with violations. According to Boris Vishnevsky, this may be due to the fact that the police did not even notify the deputy about the drafting of the protocol and did not give him the opportunity to submit objections. Vishnevsky claims that all his actions and statements have been absolutely legal.
Photo: Emilia Slabunova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 11 January, the Petrozavodsk City Court returned back to the police the case on “discrediting the army” opened against Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia and a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko. According to the website of the court, the case is returned back to the police due to of Article 29.4 Paragraph 4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (incorrect execution of documents, their preparation by unauthorised persons, or the incompleteness of the submitted materials).
Photo: Trenches along the road dug by the Russian military in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Ukraine, 7 April, 2022 // REUTERS / Gleb Garanich
The faction of the Yabloko party in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia submitted for consideration of the Karelian parliament a draft federal law establishing criminal liability for public calls for the use of nuclear weapons, as well as for propaganda of their use. Earlier, deputies from Yabloko in the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly submitted a similar bill for consideration by the St.Petersburg parliament.
Photo: Stanislav Shmakov / Photo from social media
On the morning of 11 January, a search was conducted in the apartment of Stanislav Shmakov in Tomsk. Stanislav Shmakov is an assistant to the deputy of the City Duma from Yabloko David Avetyan and was Yabloko’s candidate in the regional Duma elections in September 2021. The circumstances of the search are still unclear. The whereabouts of the civil activist is unknown. Shmakov’s relatives applied to the police about the missing person.
Neither the family of the civil activist, nor the staff of the Tomsk City Duma have any information about the cause of the search, what case has been opened and the status of Stanislav Shmakov in the case.
Photo: Svetlana Vasilkova / Photo from the Grazhdanin newspaper
Svetlana Vasilkova appealed (https://eng.yabloko.ru/30000-2/ ) the decision of the Opochetsky District Court, which recognised her dismissal from the post of head of the Pustoshkinsky District as legal. On 9 January, the Pustoshkinsky District Court received her appeal.
Photo: A screenshot of Boris Vishnevsky’s blocked page on the Vkontakte social media, an inscription runs “The material is blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation by the demand of the Public Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation No 27-31-2022/Treb622-22 of 20.05.2022
The Public Prosecutor General’s Office failed to send its legal representative to the trial on the lawsuit of Boris Vishnevsky for the second time. Since the summer, Boris Vishhnevsky, a member of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg from the Yabloko faction, has been trying to find out why the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) blocked his page on the Vkontakte social media at the request of the Public Prosecutor General’s Office.
Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia from the Yabloko party Emilia Slabunova and Inna Boluchevskaya received a response to their request to the President of the Russian Federation on the need to issue a decree on the completion of partial mobilisation. Assistant to the President Ms. L. Brycheva, head of the Legal Department of the President, reports that the conscription was carried out until the established number was reached, the number was reached, and in connection with this, the mobilisation conscription was completed, and there are no legal grounds for issuing any act.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky and Emilia Slabunova / Photo from social media
Boris Vishnevsky and Emilia Slabunova, MPs of the Legislative Assemblies of St. Petersburg and Karelia, were charged with “discrediting the armed forces” (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). Protocols on an administrative offense were drawn up against the politicians on the eve of the New Year. Information about the cases appeared on the web-sites of a district court of St. Petersburg and the City Court of Petrozavodsk. The information on the dates and times of the court hearings has not been published yet.
Photo: A Christmas ball “The Apotheosis of War” on the web-site of the online store Printio.ru. The picture is by the Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin “The Apotheosis of War”, 1871. There is an inscription on the frame: “Dedicated to all the great conquerors of the past, the present and the future”.
Dozens of thousands of dead and wounded (the true scope is unknown), and millions of refugees – such are the main things brought by 2022. This is the most terrible and irreparable. This is what will forever remain as the key recollection of the past year. I can’t call this the year’s results. But does the past year actually have results? I don’t think so. The past year is not only terrible, but also significant. There are lessons of the year, rather than results.
New Year’s greetings from Nikolai Rybakov and Grigory Yavlinsky
31.12.2022
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky congratulate all on the New Year and wish peace to all.
The Yabloko offices hosted final actions of 2022 in support of political prisoners
Press Release, 29.12.2022
Photo: Moscow / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Over the past two weeks, the regional offices of the Yabloko party have hosted the final actions of 2022 in support of political prisoners. Since the middle of the year, Yabloko regional branches have held regular actions of support, not only party members, but also civil activists take part in them. It has become a duty for Yabloko and civil activists to support those unfairly imprisoned with kind words.
Photo: Yaroslav Shcherbakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sosnovsky district of the Chelyabinsk region were ordered to re-examine the statement of violation of the law on elections at polling station No. 2164 in the village of Chipyshevo, sent by the Chairman of the regional department of the Yabloko party, Yaroslav Shcherbakov. In September 2021, a voter who came to the polling station found signatures in the voter book that ballots had been already issued allegedly to her and her six relatives who did not go to the polls. The bulletin had been issued even to a recently deceased family member. Arriving at the polling station, Yaroslav Shcherbakov, who ran for the State Duma in the region on behalf of Yabloko, called the police and filed an statement about the crime committed at the polling station.
