Press Release, 15.12.2021

Photo: Yabloko deputies Boris Vishnevsky and Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Press Service of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg

The pro-government parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg excluded from the agenda of the plenary session the legislative initiative of the Yabloko faction envisaging abolishing of  the “foreign agent” concept in the Russian legislation. The proposal to exclude the issue from the agenda was made by Alexei Zinchuk, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Thus, 32 deputies voted for the exception, four against, and five abstained. The Yabloko faction intends to introduce the bill once again at the next meeting of the St. Petersburg parliament.

“It is characteristic that the deputies of the [ruling] United Russia party did not even dare themselves to propose to exclude our project from the agenda, but made a communist to propose it. However, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the State Duma is an ardent supporter of the concept of “foreign agents”. It is obvious that the parliamentary majority (and its satellites) categorically does not want to consider our project and allow discussion on it,” Boris Vishnevsky, MP of the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly from the Yabloko faction and Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, said.

It should be noted that Alexander Shishlov and Boris Vishnevsky introduced a draft legislative initiative,  “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in order to exclude provisions on persons performing the functions of a foreign agent” from the Yabloko faction, it was proposed to completely eliminate the concept of “foreign agent” from the Russian legislation, the bill passed the legal expertise in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. The bill was drafted by Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, at the request of the Yabloko faction.

If supported by the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, the bill will be sent to the State Duma for consideration. The bill was also sent by the Yabloko party to the regional parliaments where there are deputies from Yabloko: Moscow, Karelia and Pskov.

The abolition of the concept of “foreign agent” was one of the main points of the Yabloko programme in the past Duma elections. If the initiative of the Yabloko faction is adopted, changes will be made to more than 30 legal acts.