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: Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Uyba. /Photo by kremlin.ru
Alexei Karnaukhov, head of the Anti-Corruption Policy Centre of the Yabloko party, appealed to the Public Prosecutor General of Russia with a demand to check the legality of actions in the recent event of an oil spill and the ambiguous statements of Vladimir Uyba, the head of the Komi Republic.
Photo: The results of primaries if the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko/Infographics by the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko
On 26 May, the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko summed up the results of the primaries. The winners of the primaries will be recommended by the regional branch to the Yabloko party Congress for nomination as parliamentary candidates from Yabloko in single-mandate constituencies in the Chelyabinsk region.
The “European Dialogue” expert group together with the Gender Faction of the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko opens a cycle of international online seminars “Time for Women” on gender equality and the advancement of women in Russia and the world.
The first meeting will be held on Monday, May 31, at 19.00. It will be devoted to “Discrimination Against Women and the Fight for Gender Equality: European Experience and Its Applicability in Russia”.
Residents of 53 Russian cities will receive the Yabloko party’s newspaper, timed to coincide with the launch of the election campaign. By 15 June, Yabloko plans to distribute 1.5 million newspapers.
This issue of the newspaper is devoted to the most urgent topics: the pandemics, the economic crisis, the consequences of changing the Constitution, Russia’s so-called garbage reform, and Yabloko’s actions in these fields.
On 23 May, 2021, an act of state terrorism was committed in Belarus.
On the direct order by Alexander Lukashenko, a passenger plane of the Irish airline Ryanair flying over Belarus was landed in Minsk with the help of deceit (false information about a bomb) and threats (a scrambled military fighter jet).
After that, the Belarusian KGB detained Roman Protasevich, an opposition journalist and former editor of the Telegram channel NEXTA, and Russian citizen Sofya Sapega. Both of them are arrested.
Photo: Alexander Kobrinsky / Photo from the personal archive
During unpermitted rallies on 23 and 31 January, the majority of those detained were in St. Petersburg. St.Petersburg police not only dispersed peaceful people with inexplicable cruelty, but also drove them into police vans by hundreds, so that to draw up protocols of violation of the law and take them to court.
The Yabloko party has never called on people to go to unpermitted actions, however, the party has always helped those who were detained at such actions and found themselves in a difficult situation.
Alexander Kobrinsky, a lawyer and one of the leaders of the Petersburg branch of Yabloko, has been defending detainees in courts for over 15 years. And now, after the January events, he defended people in more than ten cases. Not a single case was lost: five cases were closed due to lack of corpus delicti, in one case a previously assigned fine was canceled in the court of the higher instance. The rest of the cases are still in progress, but the defender hopes for a successful outcome.
Late in the evening of 24 May, the Novgorod District Court imposed fines on Viktor Shalyakin, the Chairman of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko, and Vitaly Bovar, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Deputies of the St. Petersburg municipality Vladimirsky District. Yabloko members participated in the municipal deputies congress (Zemsky Congress) convened in Novogod on 22 May and dispersed by police. According to the court, Yabloko members violated Article 19.3 Part 1 of the Administrative Code (“Defiance to a lawful order of a police officer…”) Viktor Shalyakin and Vitaly Bovar, and fines amounting to 3,000 roubles were imposed on them.
An exhibition dedicated to the centenary of the outstanding Soviet academic and human rights defendert Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov opened in the Moscow office of the Yabloko party. An exhibition of photographs and quotes of Acad. Sakharov was prepared by the Sakharov Centre * and was to be opened in Chistoprudny Boulevard in the centre of Moscow. However, at the last moment, the Moscow authorities refused to give a permission for the exhibition. The Yabloko party offered its office space for the exhibition.
On Saturday, 22 May, the authorities of Novgorod (North-West Russia) carried out another police action targeted at the intimidation of civil society. The unlawful dispersal of the congress of municipal deputies from different Russian cities (Zemsky Congress) and the detention of its organisers correspond to the trend towards a general ban on mass political events in our country. The events in Novgorod became another proof that there is no constitutionally guaranteed freedom of assembly in Russia.
Photo: Roman Protasevich /Photo from social networks
Opposition journalist Roman Protasevich [from Belarus] was kidnapped by special services in Minsk. For this purpose, a passenger plane of the Irish airline Ryanair flying over Belarus was forced to land at the Minsk airport by means of provocation (under the pretext of an allegedly planted bomb in the plane) and with the help of a scrambled military fighter jet.
What happened represents state air terrorism, an insolent international crime. Alexander Lukashenko ordered the hijacking of a foreign civilian plane to kidnap a political opponent. All responsibility for the act of international aviation terrorism rests with Lukashenko and the Belarusian regime. There is no doubt that there will be international consequences.
Photo: Ksenia Sverdlova / Photo by the Press Service of the Saratov branch of Yabloko
Police officers came to the office of the Saratov branch of Yabloko. The police said that they were looking for the Chair of the regional branch of the party, Ksenia Sverdlova, so that to bring her to administrative responsibility, but refused to cite the article of the Administrative Code, according to which they plan to bring the politician to responsibility.
To the 100th anniversary of Academician Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov
Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 21.05.2021
Photo: Andrei Sakharov. The 1st Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR, 1989
The prosperity of Russia is possible only if our country develops as a free and democratic state. This condition was once very precisely formulated by Academician Sakharov. Andrei Dmitriyevich is not with us for over three decades, but this thesis has become increasingly more relevant. Today it is already obvious that this key condition is the imperative for the development of our country.
Photo: Academician Andrei Sakharov / Photo by Sergei Guneyev, RIA Novosti
The photo exhibition of the Andrei Sakharov Center* “Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov: Anxiety and Hope”, which will not take place in Chistoprudny Boulevard due to the ban of the Moscow Mayor’s Office, will be held at the central office of the Yabloko party (31 bldg. 2, Pyatnitskaya Street).
Yabloko was preparing its own photo exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the outstanding Soviet academic and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. It was supposed to open on his birthday, 21 May. However, when it became known about the refusal of the Moscow Mayor’s Office to approve the exhibition in Chistoprudny Boulevard, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov turned to the Director of the Andrei Sakharov Centre, Sergei Lukashevsky, with a proposal to host the exhibition in the party office in the centre of Moscow.
Photo: Emilia Slabunova, MP of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, and Yelena Rusakova, head of the municipal district Gagarinsky, Moscow / Photo by the Press Service of the Moscow branch of Yabloko
On May 27, the Yabloko Party University will hold a conference (in Zoom) dedicated to successful election campaigns of women candidates at different levels. The conference will begin at 19:00.
Is there any specifics of women’s participation in elections? Are there topics that women candidates pay special attention to? How do voters react to them? What is the secret of success?
By-elections to the regional parliament of the Saratov region took place past week-end. Yabloko’s candidates ran in three of the four vacant single-mandate constituencies. Ksenia Sverdlova, Chair of the regional department of Yabloko, ran in the Volzhsky district, Ilya Kozlyakov, Deputy Chairman of the party branch, ran in Kalininsky district, and Dmitry Lepensky ran in Marksovsky district. The total number of voters in the three districts was 250,000 people. The single slogan of the campaign was “It is time for the smart. Time for the honest. Yabloko’s time”.
Ksenia Sverdlova summed up the campaign results on her Facebook page:
The trade union of the Moscow metro reports mass dismissals of workers – at least 50 people lost their jobs since the beginning of May. However, different figures are quoted: 100 and 200 people. They differ, since not everyone has yet applied to the trade union for protection. The dismissed associate this with their political position – they registered on the web-site in support of Alexei Navalny, and the data from the web-site had previously leaked to the Internet.
Photo from the official web-site of the Pristensky District municipality
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Kursk Region recognised the refusal of the local authorities to give a permission for a single picket in the village of Pristen as unreasonable and unlawful. The Public Prosecutor’s Office found that the refusal of the authorities violated the requirements of Articles 7 and 12 of Federal Law No 54 “On rallies, demonstrations, processions, and picketing”, as well as a loose and incorrect interpretation of Clause 16 of the Governor’s Order No. 60-rg “On the introduction of a high alert regime”. Based on the violations revealed, the Public Prosecutor’s Office made a submission to the head of the village, Vadim Katykhin, to amend the violation.
Yan Furtsev, a member of the Kursk branch of Yabloko, disputed the unlawul refusal of the local authorities in the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Speaking in the State Duma, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that the amount of dividends that Russian companies brought abroad in 2019 amounted to 4.3 trillion roubles (these are passive incomes of companies, dividends, interest, royalties, and rent payments).
Congress Resolution No. 409, published on 14.05.2021
To: The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation
The Russian Union of Rectors
Heads of institutions of higher education of the Russian Federation
Address
Persecution of university students for their civic and political activity has become more frequent in Russia.
Those who openly express their civil and political stance with is undesirable for to the authorities, take part in protests, and speak out in defence of political prisoners, are expelled from universities under far-fetched pretexts, depriving them of the opportunity to get a higher education.
