Press Release, 17.03.2020

Members of the Yabloko party and the Golos movement held a series of one-person pickets [that do not require any permission from the authorities] in the centre of Kemerovo against amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation on resetting of the presidential terms for Vladimir Putin and unlawful amendments to the Constitution.

Pickets took place in the central and the factory district. Police recorded activists’ personal data and photographed participants of the pickets.

The pickets were attended by Nikolai Kovalchuk, Chairman of the Kemerovo branch of Yabloko, Vitaly Ilyin, member of the Federal Council of the Party, Gleb Alshevich, former candidate for deputy of the State Duma of the seventh convocation, and Sergei Piskunov, member of the Golos movement.

The activists of the Kemerovo branch of Yabloko emphasise that the entire performance with changing of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, conceived in the Kremlin and supported by the State Duma, the Federation Council and regional parliaments, contradicts all the rules of law and the current Constitution. Especially when Putin agreed to run for his fifth term in 2024.

The placards ran: “No more than two terms”, “1984. 2024. 2036. Putin has reset the Constitution! What shall we leave to the future generations?”

It should be noted that the police conducted surveillance of the Yabloko activists who finished picketing.

On March 12, Yabloko held an all-Russian action against Putin’s usurpation of power. In over 50 regions, party activists picketed their legislative assemblies, which were considering Putin’s amendments to the Constitution.