Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
On 26 January , and action of writing letters to political prisoners was held at the central office of the Yabloko party in Moscow. This time 311 letters were written to 63 political prisoners. The actions lasted three hours. More than 60 people were present, they wrote words of support for political prisoners, told their news to those kept in pre-trial detention centers and penal colonies, those who were not afraid to speak up and were under investigation for this, those who have been separated from relatives and friends.
Photo: Valery Borshchyov, Co-Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group / Photo by Kristina Kormilitsyna, Kommersant
The Moscow City Court, on false “grounds” made up by the Ministry of Justice, decided to liquidate the oldest human rights organisation in Russia – the Moscow Helsinki Group, established in 1976. Co-Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group has been Valery Borshchyov, a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko.
Photo by the Press Service of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia
The parliamentary pro-government majority of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia rejected the draft federal initiative of the Yabloko faction envisaging criminal penalties for propaganda of nuclear war. The meeting of the Karelian Legislative Assembly was held on 26 January.
Photo: Yaroslav Shcherbakov / Photo from the personal archive
On 25 January, the Seventh Court of Cassation dismissed the complaint of the Chelyabinsk Mayor’s Office against the decision of the regional court. The decision remains in force: the refusal of the city administration to the Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko Yaroslav Shcherbakov to hold a rally “For Peace” on 1 May, 2022, was unlawful.
On 25 January, the Yabloko Party University will host a lecture “What will journalism be like in Russia and in the world?” by Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Ph.D. in Philology, member of the Executive Committee of Article 19, an international non-profit organisation protecting and promoting freedom of expression and freedom of information throughout the world, and Director of the PEN-Moscow Association.
Photo by the Press Service of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg
The parliamentary majority of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg excluded from the agenda the draft federal initiative of the Yabloko faction envisaging criminal penalties for propaganda of nuclear war. This happened at the plenary meeting on Wednesday, 25 January. 35 out of 46 deputies present in the parliament voted to exclude the bill from the agenda.
This week and early next week, the Yabloko party’s central office and offices of the regional branches of the party will host the first in 2023 actions of writing letters to Russian political prisoners. Yabloko traditionally invites all Russian citizens who would like to send a kind words and wishes to those unjustly deprived of their liberty to join the actions. Yabloko will take care of sending letters by mail. Also Yabloko has written a short guide on how to write a letter for a political prisoner so that the letter is not stopped by censors.
On 24 January, the Yabloko party held a charity auction in support of eight Russian political prisoners: 31 lots from Russian politicians, journalists and cultural figures were put up for auction. The total amount of the funds raised, including redeemed lots and voluntary donations, amounted to 624,000 roubles. Donations continue to come to the account of the organisers of the auction.
Photo: Alexandra Skochilenko at the trial with lawyers / Photo by Boris Vishnevsky
The criminal case of the St. Petersburg artist Alexandra Skochilenko, who is accused of spreading “fake news” about the army, must be closed, and she should be acquitted. This was stated by the Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, Boris Vishnevsky, who came to the court to support Skochilenko on Friday, 20 January.
Photo: Svetlana Vasilkova / Photo by the Pskov Yabloko Press Service
On 20 January, the administrative board of the Pskov Regional Court considered the appeal of Svetlana Vasilkova, head of the Pustoshkinsky district elected from Yabloko, about the early termination of her powers by the district assembly of deputies. The deputies of the district Assembly made such a decision on 24 November, dismissing Vasilkova from her post, despite the fact that the State Finance Committee of the Pskov Region recognised the district headed by Vasilkova one of the best in the region in 2021 and allotted additional funding in the form of an additional incentive payment which was used for preparation for the heating season.
On 25 January, the Yabloko Party University will host a lecture “What will journalism be like in Russia and in the world?” by Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Ph.D. in Philology, member of the Executive Committee of Article 19, an international non-profit organisation protecting and promoting freedom of expression and freedom of information throughout the world, and Director of the PEN-Moscow Association. The lecture will begin at 18:00 MSK.
Photo: The inscriptions run: Magnitogorsk. The right to a protest. Let’s return “hyde park” to the centre of the city.
The Chelyabinsk Region Court accepted the claim of Kira Belaya, Chairwoman of the Magnitogorsk local branch of Yabloko, against the Government of the Chelyabinsk Region on the return of a “hyde park” (a place for holding rallies without any permissions) to the centre of the city of Magnitogorsk. The first hearing is scheduled for 27 February.
Kira Belaya will be represented in court by Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Chelyabinsk Region branch of Yabloko, who in the Fall of 2022 won a similar lawsuit in the city of Chelyabinsk.
On 19 January, Yabloko leaders and activists in Moscow once again met at Prechistenka 3 to honour the memory of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were killed by neo-Nazis 14 years ago. Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman Ivan Bolshakov, Moscow City Duma MP Sergei Mitrokhin, deputy chairs of the Moscow branch of Yabloko Kirill Goncharov and Andrei Morev, Chairman of the Yabloko Gender Faction Galina Mikhaleva, and other members of the party laid flowers at the impromptu memorial.
Photo: Gas masks at a school in Pripyat, an abandoned city in the Chernobyl zone / Photo by Alexander Vedernikov, Kommersant
Yabloko MP Artur Gaiduk submitted to the Pskov Regional Assembly a draft federal law on criminal liability for public calls for the use of nuclear weapons and propaganda for their use. Earlier, similar bills were introduced by deputies from Yabloko in the legislative assemblies of St. Petersburg and Karelia. Members of the Committee on Legislation of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg considered the initiative dangerous and rejected it.
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”.
