Statement by Yabloko candidates for deputies of the Moscow City Duma, 25.07.2019

We are outraged by the transformation of the elections to the Moscow City Duma into a kind of special forces raid. The launch of a repressive machine demonstrates the inadequacy of the authorities, their fear of free and independent people.

The Investigation Committee should look for the corpus delicti in the actions of the city and district electoral commissions, which cynically banned most independent candidates from the election.

The authorities, provoking radicalisation of protest, increase the gap between society and the state.

We express solidarity with all our colleagues who were searched, interrogated and detained. We require registration of all candidates who have submitted [as required by the law] signatures of voters [in favour of their registration].

What will be the Moscow City Duma and Moscow itself must be decided at the polling station, and not at the police station.

The composition of the Moscow City Duma be must be decided at the polling rather than the police station.

Yevgeny Bunimovich, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Moscow;

Daria Besedina, architect and head of department in the Urban Projects Foundation;

Maxim Kruglov, expert of the Yabloko Anti-Corruption Policy Centre;

Andrei Babushkin, member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights;

Kirill Goncharov, Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper “We Are Muscovites!”;

Yelena Rusakova, head of the municipal council in Gagarinsky District of Moscow;

Anastasia Bryukhanova, municipal deputy of Shchukino District and expert of the Urban Projects Foundation;

Sergei Mitrokhin, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee.