Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Dmitry Muratov and Nikolai Rybakov on the decision of the Moscow City Court to revoke the license from Novaya Gazeta
Press Release, 07.02.2023
Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The Moscow City Court, on absurd grounds, deprived Novaya Gazeta and Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta of media registration certificates. The judge dismissed the editorial board’s complaint against the decision of the Basmanny Court of Moscow, which took away licenses from the media back in September 2022. The decisions came into effect today, two months before the 30th anniversary of the newspaper.
Photo: Mikhail Afanasyev, his wife Yelena and son / Photo from social media
Yabloko closes the collection of donations to cover the fine for Mikhail Afanasyev, a journalist from Khakassia, Editor-in-Chief of the Novy Focus media and a Yabloko party member. On 5 February, his wife Yelena Afanasyeva announced the collection of 450,000 roubles closed. We express gratitude to all who helped to raise money.
On 5 February, a picket (which managed to obtain the permission of the authorities) against the ban on abortion was held in Kolyushchenko Square in Chelyabinsk. Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the regional branch of Yabloko, as well as party members and supporters, came to the action to speak out against the ban on abortion in Russia.
Photo: Yelena Osipova at the opening of her exhibition in the St. Petersburg Yabloko on 31 January, 2023 / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Alexander Shishlov, sent inquiries to the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Roman Plugin, and the St.Petersburg Public Prosecutor, Viktor Melnik. Shishlov demands that the police return paintings of the artist and civil activist Yelena Osipova, that were illegally confiscated from the office of the Yabloko party, take under control due consideration of the applications made by Andrei Chertkov, the lawyer representing the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko, and initiate a criminal case for a knowingly false report of a bomb in the Yabloko office.
After Belovezh Accords of 1991 [when the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus secretly gathered in Belarus and declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and established the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place as a successor entity], an authoritarian regime began to take shape in the Russian Federation, the power in this regime consisted of three intertwined branches: “systemic liberals”[people in power who called themselves “liberals” and allegedly competed with the adherents of a “strong hand”, but conducted reforms which brought oligarchs into power], who did not inspire confidence in the majority of citizens, but enjoyed support in the bureaucracies in the West; “strong business executives” – former Soviet directors of factories and plants and chairs of boards; and security officials. By the mid-1990s, the regime was formed, and only “proportions” [of its constituent parts] began to change within it then…
The Russian consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor demanded a ban on public events in St. Petersburg due to the threat of the spread of not only COVID-19, but also cholera and plague. To date, however, not a single case of such contamination has been identified. This follows from the response of Natalia Bashketova, head of the St. Petersburg department of Rospotrebnadzor, to the inquiry of Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the St.Peterburg Legislative Assembly.
Photo: Alexander Yefimov and Yabloko activists in Volgograd / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On the 80th anniversary of the victory over the Hitler’s army in the Battle of the Volga, leaders and activists of the Yabloko party paid tribute to the memory of the heroes and victims of the Second World War and laid flowers at the eternal flame and memorial stele on Fallen Fighters Square in Volgograd and at the stele in Alexander Garden in Moscow. The ceremonies were attended by Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman Ivan Bolshakov, members of the Federal Bureau Galina Boldyreva, Kirill Goncharov and Alexander Yefimov.
Photo: Emilia Slabunova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Today the Petrozavodsk City Court was examining, for four and a half hours, the case of an administrative offense by Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and Honored Teacher of the Russian Federation. Slabunova was accused of “discrediting the army” (Article 20.3.3 Part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses), because at a meeting of the Karelian Legislative Assembly she called for spending money on the education of children, and not on military operations. The Judge denied all eight defence motions and set a fine of 30,000 roubles as punishment for the work of Emilia Slabunova in the Parliament of Karelia in the interests of voters.
In April of this year, the term of service of the current Commissioner for Human Rights for the Yaroslavl region expires. Sergei Balabayev, a member of the Yaroslavl Yabloko Bureau, has been listed among the three contenders for the post of Ombudsman for Yaroslavl. Balabayev’s candidacy was proposed by a group of deputies of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma. Till 13 February, the regional Duma will accept recommendations on candidates from public organisations.
Photo: Anna Cherepanova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Anna Cherepanova, a deputy of the Duma of Novgorod from Yabloko, sent inquiries to the Public Prosecutor General of Russia Igor Krasnov, the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Arkady Gostev and the Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova in defence of political prisoner Andrei Pivovarov.
Photo: Viktor Shalyakin / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 30 January, the Novgorod District Court satisfied the claims Viktor Shalyakin, head of the local branch of the Yabloko party in Novgorod, against the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance of Russia for compensation of his expenses connected with the trial and moral damage.
Photo: Cheboksary / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Actions of writing letters to Russian political prisoners were held at the central and regional offices of the Yabloko party past week and at the beginning of this week. Several hundred postcards and envelopes will go to penal colonies and pre-trial detention centres to Mikhail Afanasyev, Alexei Gorinov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Alexei Navalny, Alexander Skochilenko, Andrei Boyarshinov, Lilia Chanysheva, Mikhail Krieger, Olga Smirnova, Viktoria Petrova, Natalia Filonova, Sergei Mikhailov and many other politicians, journalists and civic activists who are unjustly deprived of their freedom and are waiting for news and words of support “from the outside”.
Photo: The Exhibition / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The police seized 19 paintings about peace by artist and activist Yelena Osipova. The paintings were exhibited at the office of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko at Spalernaya 13.
On Wednesday, 1 February, police officers came to the Yabloko office, cordoned off the premises and said that they had received a call about an alleged bomb threat. Then they took all Yabloko activists out into the street and did not let them in for several hours. The work of the party office was paralysed, and the candidates nominated by Yabloko for the by-elections of municipal deputies in the Krasnoselsky and Yuzhno-Primorsky municipal districts were unable to complete the preparation of documents for submission to the electoral commissions.
Police came to the office of the regional branch of the Yabloko party in St. Petersburg at Shpalernaya 13, on Wednesday, 1 February. Police officers cordoned off the premises and said that they had received a call about a bomb threat.
Photo: Yelena Osipova at the opening of her exhibition in the office of the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
An exhibition of anti-war paintings and posters by the famous artist and activist Yelena Andreyevna Osipova opened at the office of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party on Tuesday, 31 January. In addition, on this day visitors also participated in the monthly action of writing letters to Russian political prisoners.
Photo: Emilia Slabunova / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 2 February, the Petrozavodsk City Court will hold a hearing on the case of an administrative offense allegedly committed by Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia and a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko. She is accused of “discrediting the army”. The hearing will start at 10:30.
St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko will host an exhibition of posters by the famous St. Petersburg artist and civil activist Yelena Osipova. The opening of the exhibition will take place on Tuesday, 31 January, at 18.30.
On 27 January, on the anniversary of lifting of the siege of Leningrad, the leaders of the Yabloko party laid flowers at the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko Boris Vishnevsky, Coordinator of the Federal Political Committee Alexander Shishlov, member of the Federal Political Committee Lev Shlosberg, member of the Yabloko Bureau Anatoly Golov and other members of the party came to honour the memory of those who died in the besieged city.
Photo: Deforestation near Savin Navolok Park, Petrozavodsk / Photo by the Karelian Yabloko
The Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia at its meeting on 26 January rejected Yabloko’s bill on the return of the mandatory environmental impact assessment of natural reserves in the region. Earlier, a similar bill by Yabloko, supported by five academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Department of Natural Resources, was blocked by the pro-government majority in the Moscow City Duma.
