Press Release, 02.06.2017

Today, Svetlana Chechil, YABLOKO Federal Council member, has been released from penal colony. Yesterday the Supreme Court of Karelia overturned the decision of the court of first instance and replaced the remaining part of punishment for Svetlana Chechil, ex-head of the Prionezhsky district administration, who was serving the sentence in a penal colony in Karelia with “restriction of freedom”.

According to Chechil’s lawyer Alexei Solovyov, from now on Chechil must register in the police every month and can not leave Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia, without permission. Restriction of freedom will be valid for Svetlana Chechil until the end of the sentence, which will expire in four months. All this time she can not leave the house from 10 pm to 6 am and attend large-scale mass events.

“I personally and my colleagues in the party are happy that Svetlana Chechil is finally free,” Yabloko party Chair Emilia Slabunova said. “Congratulations to her and her wonderful family, so that they can finally embrace each other and be together.”

“It was an unprecedented political case, completely trumped up and aimed at intimidation of not only Chechil, but also the members of the Yabloko party in Karelia and Russia, so that to frighten all active citizens who are not ready to put up with what is happening in the Republic [of Karelia] and the country in general,” Slabunova stressed. “Svetlana Chechil’s example shows that courageous people do not intimidated, and they are ready to prove their case, despite the fact what they have to endure because of it and the hardships they have to overcome” she added.

“The Chechil case was handled by the Human Rights Council. I express my deep gratitude to all those who made efforts to ensure that Svetlana Chechil be released,” Slabunova noted.

Last December, Svetlana Chechil applied to the Petrozavodsk Court with a request for parole, but she was denied it due to the presence of two “penalties”. Later both of these penalties were recognized unlawful by the courts. In April 2017 the court refused to replace penal colony for Chechil by a milder punishment.

Svetlana Chechil, head of the administration of the Prionezhsky district of Karelia, was sentenced to 18 months of penal colony. She was accused of abuse of power. The criminal case was instituted shortly after the meeting between Chechil and Deputy Governor Oleg Gromov, where the official threatened the “Yabloko woman” with reprisals if she participated in the contest for the post of head of the district administration.

Yabloko considers the verdict to Svetlana Chechil political reprisals on behalf of former Governor Khudilainen. Criminal prosecution against Chechil is groundless, absurd and politically motivated.

In May 2016, the party held an all-Russian action in defense of Chechil. Pickets in her support were held in Petrozavodsk, Moscow, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Tula, Cherkessk, Kursk, Saratov and other cities.

In 2015, a similar situation occurred around Yevgeny Vitishko, well-known Russian environmentalist and Yabloko party member. Kirsanovsky District Court of the Tambov region made a decision to replace the part of the punishment in a penal colony by restriction of freedom. In 2012, Vitishko was sentenced to three years of probation for a trumped-up charge of the so-called “damage to the fence,” which was illegally established on public lands around the summer residence of Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachyov.

Then a special prosecutor’s inspection found that there had never been any fence in that place. In December 2013, the suspended sentence was replaced by a real one. February 18, 2014 in the midst of the Olympic Games in Sochi, the activist was sent to a colony-settlement in the Tambov region.