Boris Vishnevsky and Emilia Slabunova supported Memorial’s Yury Dmitriyev at the trial

Press Release, 27.12.2021

Photo: Boris Vishnevsky and Emilia Slabunova in the corridor of the city court (centre) / Photo by the Press Service of the Yabloko party

Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, and Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, supported Yury Dmitriyev, historian and researcher of Stalin’s repressions and head of the Karelian branch of the Memorial human rights society, at the trial on 27 December. Vishnevsky and Slabunova consider such a tough sentence to be a political reprisal by the “heirs of the Stalinist regime” confirming the very fact of innocence of the human rights defender.

On 27 December, 2021, the Petrozavodsk City Court announced the verdict to Yury Dmitriyev, head of the Memorial human rights research centre. Judge Yekaterina Khomyakova found the historian guilty on all the charges and sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment in a strict regime penal colony “for a combination of crimes”. Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party and MP of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, and Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia, came to support Dmitriyev.

“I was asked in St. Petersburg why I was going there [to the trial in Karelia]. I said that I could not influence this verdict, but I could help only one thing – just to be there at that moment. That is why I am here in Petrozavodsk. This were reprisals, not a trial. I understand why the judge made such a decision. This was obviously an order from the special services and an order from the authorities. Unfortunately, we did not expect anything else. We realised that this verdict was not written in the judge’s office, but  was written in other places. Dmitriyev is absolutely innocent. This is not only my point of view, but also the point of view of Yabloko. The heirs of Stalin’s executioners took revenge on the person who exposed the crimes of these executioners, and the present secret services openly consider themselves successors of the Stalin’s executioners,” Boris Vishnevsky commented on the verdict.

Emilia Slabunova noted that such a “monstrous verdict” once again confirms the fact of Yury Dmitriyev’s innocence.

“The verdict is monstrous. The sheer enormity of this verdict confirms the very fact of the innocence of Yury Dmitriyev, a man who has been performing a great human and civil feat all his life – restoring the names of people who were erased from the life and fate of the country by the arbitrariness of the state. Only thanks to Yury Dmitriyev these names were returned to families and the country. The way he was dealt with confirms that the current government represents the heirs of that [Stalin’s] regime,” Emilia Slabunova adds.

BORIS VISHNEVSKY

is Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko Party, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and  Bureau. Leader of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg