Press Release, 26.07.2016

St.Petersburg Youth YABLOKO acted in defense of non-profit organisations ESVERO and the Andrei Rylkov Foundation engaged in the prevention of HIV infection in Russia and recognised as “foreign agents.” On 25 July party protesting against enlisting these organisations as “foreign agents”, YABLOKO activists sent to the Ministry of Justice the layout of the Rosstat Yearbook (statistical data from the Russian Federal Statistical Service) and an excerpt from official statistics on the level of HIV in Russia.

“HIV is “bomb” which is about to explode, one can be completely unaware of having it in his body. And at the detection of HIV, the infected need professional aid which was eventually cut without provision of a decent replacement. Thus, they have supposedly solved one problem by sacrificing the thing which leaves much to be desired in Russia – the healthcare! That is, it turns out that no one cares about our health, but all our activities base on it,” Alexander Cherenko, Board member of the St. Petersburg Youth Yabloko said.

“It is painful to watch how the government neglects the increasing epidemic, responding to it by another sequestration of the costs. We can and we must stop it! ” Alexey Petrovsky, another Board member of the organisation, noted.

In late June, the Ministry of Justice announced two well-known Russian NGOs for many years engaged in HIV prevention – ESVERO and the Andrei Ryklov Foundation – be “foreign agents”. According to the Ministry, both the organisations conduct political activities with foreign money. The NGOs explain that they deal with public health issues, and have to use foreign money only because they are unable to get grants in Russia.

According to the Youth YABLOKO activists, it is inappropriate to exert administrative pressure proceeding from formalities on the organisations involved in public health care, including prevention of the spread of HIV, especially in the situation when Russia has been leading among European countries in the spread of the disease, and the official statistics does not show serious changes for the better. In addition, the Federal Law “On Non-Commercial Organisations” clearly indicates that activities in the field of health care, prevention of diseases, social services, social support and protection of citizens, promotion of healthy lifestyles, as well as charitable activities do not refer to political activities (as a only an organisation engaged in political activities can be recognized a “foreign agent”).