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: Maxim Kruglov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, proposed to make members of the Moscow Government, heads of sectoral and functional executive bodies of Moscow, and local governments report annually to the Moscow City Duma on their work. Amendments to the Charter of Moscow were considered at the meeting of the Moscow City Duma on 28 December. The parliamentary majority, consisting of pro-government United Russia and My Moscow factions, did not want to take on additional powers to control the executive branch power in Moscow.
On 28 December, an exhibition of children’s letters “Letter *** *****” opened at the central office of the Yabloko party in Moscow. The authors of the letters are children of Ukrainian refugees who are under care of the Civic Assistance Committee and the Lighthouse Charity Foundation.
On 24 December, activists of the Rostov-on-Don regional branch of the Yabloko party held a New Year’s charity event called “A Yabloko Pie” (in Russian “yabloko” means an “apple”). The participants baked apple pies under the guidance of chefs from the partner restaurant Shamaika House to donate them to nursing homes in the Rostov-on-Don region. There were ten fragrant apple pies in total. They were given to the Old Age in Joy Foundation, which took them to lonely elderly people.
Photo: Alexei Karnaukhov, Director of the Yabloko Anti-Corruption Policy Centre / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Russian government proposed to the President to withdraw from the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. Such a withdrawal maintains the line towards the break with European legal standards and will throw Russia 15 years back into the past. Why is the Convention so important and what are the implications of the withdrawal? A viewpoint of Alexei Karnaukhov, Director of the Yabloko Anti-Corruption Policy Centre.
The leaders of Yabloko speak in defence of Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the Yabloko Political Committee
Press Release, 24.12.2022
Photo: Svetlana Gannushkina / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Throughout this year, the Ministry of Justice of Russia, almost without a break, assigned once a week the title of “foreign agent” to people whose activities and civil stance have become a kind of “red rag” for the authorities. At the end of the year, Svetlana Gannushkina, a world-famous human rights defender, was included in this list. The irony is that since February 2022, it was Gannushkina and her colleagues in the Civic Assistance Committee who took over the organistion of assistance to Ukrainian refugees, doing this almost around the clock.
On 25 and 27 December, the Yabloko party will host a New Year’s party in its Moscow office for 250 children – Ukrainian refugees who are under care of the Civic Assistance Committee and the Lighthouse Charity Foundation helping refugees. Yabloko has prepared an extensive festive programme, master classes, a photo zone, gifts, contests and much more for children.
Photo: Anatoly Marchenko / Photo from the family archive
Public hearings on Yabloko’s proposal to perpetuate the memory of Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko will be held in Tatarstan. This was announced by the head of the Chistopol municipal district.
Photo: The lecture by Valery Borshchyov, Co-Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, at Yabloko on 21 December, 2022 / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice to liquidate the Moscow Helsinki Group and ban its activities is another step towards turning the Russian state into a dictatorship.
The liquidation of the oldest human rights organisation in our country will become the same significant event as its emergence in the USSR in the 1970s. In 1976, when the Soviet leadership, after the signing of the Helsinki Agreement, was forced to feign recognition that the citizens of the USSR have the same inalienable rights as all people in the world, the Moscow Helsinki Group emerged.
Exceptionally wise and honest people, including Yury Orlov, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Pyotr Grigorenko, Yelena Bonner, Anatoly Marchenko, Andrei Sakharov, Sergei Kovalyov, and Valery Borshchyov, waged a courageous fight so that the state respect the vital rights of people simply because they are people..
Photo: Svetlana Vasilkova / Photo by the Pskov Yabloko
On 21 December, the Opochetsky District Court announced the decision on the suit of Yabloko’s Svetlana Vasilkova to challenge her dismissal from the post of head of the Pustoshkinsky district of the Pskov region. As follows from the decision, Svetlana Vasilkova’s demands were “partially satisfied”: it was decided to refuse to recognise the decision of the Assembly of Deputies of the Pustoshkinsky District on the resignation and the “letter of support” of Governor Mikhail Vedernikov as illegal, but to satisfy the request to publish the judicial act in the regional newspaper.
On 21 December, the Yabloko Party University hosted a lecture “Political Idealism: an Illusion or a Reality” by Valery Borshchyov, an outstanding human rights activist, dissident, a member of the Federal Political Committee, Co-Chairman of the Yabloko’s Human Rights Faction and Co-Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
On 1 December, Valery Borshchyov turned 80. He became an active participant in the Soviet human rights movement after meeting Acad. Andrei Sakharov in 1975.
In 2009, Valery Borshchyov was involved, as a well-known human rights defender and head of the Public Monitoring Commission of Moscow, in clarifying the circumstances of the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a pre-trial detention centre.
Photo: Governor of the Volgograd Region Andrey Bocharov speaking in support of the “special operation” in front of students of the Volgograd branch of Plekhanov Russian University of Econmics / Photo by www.rea.ru
Yabloko started collecting signatures in Volgograd against the renaming of the city after Joseph Stalin. The initiative on the change.org platform was launched by Alexander Yefimov, a member of the Federal Bureau of Yabloko. Yefimov’s petition against the return of the name of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to Volgograd gathered over 1.500 signatures in five days. At the end of the signature campaign, an appeal will be sent to the Governor of the region.
Today, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin delivered a report to the deputies of the Moscow City Duma on the results of the work of the Moscow government in 2022. After a short report on the successes in the economy, social policies, the development of transport, and the victory over sanctions, Mayor Sobyanin answered questions from the factions of the Moscow parliament. It was allowed to ask the Mayor of Moscow only three pre-sent questions from each faction. The faction of the Yabloko party, being aware of the decorative nature of the communication between the Mayor and the deputies of the Moscow parliament, nevertheless, did not neglect the opportunity to get answers to questions that concern the residents of Moscow.
Photo: Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Yabloko faction submitted to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg a draft resolution on a legislative initiative of the St.Petersburg parliament for the State Duma on the responsibility for calls for the use of nuclear weapons. Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction of the St.Petersburg parliament, stated this at a briefing for journalists on Wednesday, 21 December.
On 20 December, a “government hour” was held in the State Duma, during which representatives of non-parliamentary parties could ask questions to the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov in his speech called for peace and the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement.
On 16 December, the Yabloko party hosted a lecture “The Constitutional Right to Alternative Civilian Service in Modern Conditions” by Anatoly Pchelintsev, Doctor of Law, Honorary Advocate of Russia, and member of the Writers’ Union of Russia. Anatoly Pchelintsev as a former a military lawyer has extensive experience in protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens, including in the Supreme Court of Russia, the Constitutional Court of the RF and the European Court of Human Rights. He headed the military legal research group of the Ministry of Defence, participated in the preparation of a number of laws in the field of defence and security, including the Federal Law “On Alternative Civilian Service”.
Appeal by the Federal Bureau of Yabloko of 15.12.2022, published on 16.12.2022
Photo by Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant
Yabloko demands to put an end to the militarisation of the school: not to make elementary military training a compulsory subject, not to allow for politicised and paramilitary events to be held at schools, and stop forcing schoolchildren to participate in “Conversations About the Important”. The Federal Bureau of the Yabloko Party sent such demands to deputies of the State Duma, members of the Federation Council and Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov.
Photo: An ambulance takes Artyom Kamardin to hospital from the Investigative Committee for the Tervskoy District in Moscow / Photo from social media
The Investigative Committee refuses to open a criminal case against the law enforcement officers who allegedly mocked and tortured civil activists Artyom Kamardin, Alexandra Popova and Alexander Menyukov. This follows from the response of the head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Moscow to the appeal of the head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, Maxim Kruglov.
The coming days, actions in support of political prisoners will be held in the offices of the Yabloko party across Russia. Yabloko invites all, who would like to support politicians and civil activists who were unjustly convicted or under investigation, to take part in the actions. Participants of the actions can sign postcards printed by the Yabloko party or bring their own letters. Regional offices of Yabloko undertake to send all correspondence to the addressees.
Photo: Anatoly Marchenko / Photo from the family archive
The administration and the Council of Deputies of the city of Barabinsk, the Novosibirsk region, refused to perpetuate the memory of their famous fellow countryman, dissident and writer Anatoly Marchenko, because, in their opinion, he was not an outstanding figure and did not perform any real exploit.
Photo: Valery Borshchov/ Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 21 December, the Yabloko Party University will host a lecture by Valery Borshchyov, an outstanding human rights activist, dissident, a member of the Federal Political Committee, Co-Chairman of the Yabloko’s Human Rights Faction and Co-Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Valery Borshchev will give a lecture on the topic: “Political Idealism: an Illusion or a Reality”.
