Press Release, 8.04.2022

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yelena Smirnova, acting head of the St. Petersburg Rospotrebnazdor (the Russian consumer safety watchdog), sent a response to the request of the Yabloko faction in the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly to lift the existing ban on holding public events in St. Petersburg.

The St.Petersburg department of Rospotrebnazdor refused to lift the ban, they believe that despite the “relative stabilisation” of the coronavirus morbidity, the epidemiological situation remains at a high level of “significant risks of a massive spread of a new coronavirus infection”.

“Certinaly, this is a runaround. It is just that Rospotrebnazdor (like the city authorities) really does not want to give citizens the opportunity to express their critical opinion about what has been happening in the city. For example, about a new attack on historical buildings,” Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party and an MP of the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, said.

In March, the Yabloko faction of the Legislative Assembly sent an appeal to the Chief Sanitary Doctor of St. Petersburg with a proposal to lift the ban on holding public events. Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction, emphasised in the letter an almost threefold decrease in the number of infections and deaths per day, but the ban on public events remained. At the same time, certain public events were held without restrictions, for example, a rally-concert “in honour of the eighth anniversary of the Russia’s annexation of Crimea”, held at the Yubileiny Sports Palace on 18 March.

ALEXANDER SHISHLOV

is head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg

BORIS VISHNEVSKY

is Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko Party, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and  Bureau, and an MP of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg