Statement by YABLOKO faction in St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, 02.04.2015

Struggle against YABLOKO representatives on behalf of Governor of Karelia Alexander Khudilaynen has turned into political reprisal by means of law enforcement.

Despite the public declaration of the President and Prime Minister of Russia on the ease of punitive practices on behalf of the state, a series of arrests of YABLOKO representatives including YABLOKO deputies in the Petrozavodsk city council, who are accused of entrepreneurship fraud, has taken place recently.

The disagreement of the law enforcement with the price at which the items of immovable property had been sold lies at the heart of nearly all the criminal cases. It is not just criminal proceedings, in order to put the maximum pressure the arrests and imprisonment of members of the city council – the people who got their mandates directly from the citizens – take place.

The deputies of Petrozavodsk city council Olga Zaletskaya and director of the Lentorg company Alexandra Kornilova (leader of the Karelia branch of YABLOKO Vasily Popov is head of the Lentorg company) were arrested and imprisoned in March. Zaletskaya and Kornilova are accused of large scale fraud. They have allegedly conducted the sale and purchase of the building at a lower price, and this did damage to the city of Petrozavodsk at the amount of 16.5 million rubles. However, this non-residential building passed three state examinations to estimate its value, and the decision to sale the building at an auction was taken by court, which confirmed both the legality of the transaction and the estimated value.

Ignoring the rule of law and the idea of ​​humanity, the court in Petrozavodsk imprisoned not just a deputy. Olga Zaletsky is the mother of two underaged children. And now the Ministry of Education of Karelia demands to send these children to an orphanage because Olga’s husband is a sailor and has now gone on a long-distance voyage. The reprisal against the mother continues causing severe psychological trauma to her children. Moreover, for the first two days Zaletskaya was kept in a cell without shoes.

YABLOKO faction in St.Petersburg Lagislative Assembly demand to immediately release all the arrested deputies and impose a pre-trail restraint which won’t be connected with imprisonment. We anticipate that the use of such measures as detention against the people, charges against whom are based on very shaky and subjective arguments of the investigation, can be justified by nothing but an attempt to blackmail Olga Zaletskaya by the fate of her children and can be called nothing but a sophisticated psychological torture.

YABLOKO faction address the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and Head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation with the demand to conduct a check of law enforcement agencies activities in Petrozavodsk which perform – as it is no longer a secret to anyone – a political order of Governor of Karelia Alexander Khudilaynen against his political opponents From the YABLOKO party.

Grigory Yavlinsky
Boris Vishnevsky
Alexandr Kobrinsky