Press Release, 11.07.2018

The Moscow Mayor’s Officel refused to give a permission to hold a protest rally on 18 July organised by Yabloko together with the Russian Confederation of Labor and a number of political parties against the government’s bill of raising the retirement age. The action was planned to be held in one of the central places in Moscow.

Authorised representative of the city authorities Vasily Oleinik, deputy head of the regional security and anti-corruption department, refused to give Yabloko a central venue for the action referring to Vladimir Putin’s decree No 202, which prohibits holding protest actions during the World Cup. At the same time, the organisers were offered an alternative venue, in the Sokolniki Park [a forest in the East of Moscow].

“[The Mayor’s Office] has once again refused the headquarters against the pension “reform” in holding a rally, which we asked them to give a permission to conduct at Suvorov Square or Sakharov Prospekt. Instead, they are driving us with maniacal perseverance to Sokolniki [forest],” Sergei Mitrokhin,  member of the Political Committee of Yabloko, wrote in his FB page. “The protest in connection with the plans of the State Duma to stamp [during their meeting] on 19 July the robbery of the people, will apparentlyl take place in some non-trivial form.”

A similar situation has developed in St. Petersburg. There, the headquarters of the rally was also denied popular venues. Currently, the organisers appeal refusal in court  and prepare applications for other venues, the coordination of which requires less time.

According to Anatoly Golov, Co-Chairman of the Social Democratic Faction of Yabloko, who deals with the organisation of actions in Moscow and St. Petersburg, “as a last resort, we can agree to less convenient venues. The people must be taken out [into the streets], the people are determined [to say ‘no’ to raising the retirement age]”, Golov says.

It should be noted that the first wave of mass-scale protests against the pension reform took place in late June and early July. Yabloko also acted as a co-organiser of actions in several Russian cities. The first pickets against raising the retirement age, despite the ban on protest actions, were held by activists of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party by the State Duma building on 19 June.