Press release based on the statement by the Yabloko party, 22.08.2017

Today the Yabloko party has released a statement in support of Kirill Serebrennikov, an art director of Moscow’s Gogol Centre, who has been arrested earlier today. Yabloko claims that the persecution of the art director must be stopped immediately.

In late May police searched Gogol Centre and Serebrennikov’s flat as part of an ongoing embezzlement case investigation. “All this time the investigators could not decide on the amount of financial damage which was supposedly done to the state budget, they kept Alexei Malobrodsky, ex-art director of Gogol Centre, in custody for a month without filing a charge against him, they declared that “Midsummer’s Night Dream” performance directed by Kirill Serebrennikov did not exist despite the fact that it has been regularly on in Moscow for years,” the statement runs.

Yabloko insists that the investigation is inconsistent, it denies obvious facts and tries to force people to admit their guilt by taking witnesses as hostages. According to Yabloko, the arrest of Kirill Serebrennikov is an act of intimidation of the creative community.

The party doubts that the art director is guilty arguing that accusations of embezzlement became a usual instrument of political reprisals in modern Russia.

“We are certain the Serebrennikov is persecuted for his art, which goes against the obscurantist state policy aimed at the creation of historical myths and cheep propaganda under the auspices of the Minister for Culture Vladimir Medinsky. Serebrennikov is an example of an independent spirit, freedom and absence of compromise in art, therefore he was chosen as a victim for a new demonstrative trial.”

“We demand that the persecution of Serebrennikov and his colleagues must be stopped and the framed-up criminal case against Sedmaya Studia (The Seventh Studio) [non-profit organisation founded by Kirill Serebrennikov] must be closed,” runs the statement signed by Emilia Slabunova, Yabloko Chair.