Press Release 28.10.2021

Photo by MaykovNikita/depositphotos

Deputies of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg have submitted to the St.Petersburg parliament a draft law, the adoption of which will completely eliminate the status of a “foreign agent” from Russian legislation. If the bill is supported by the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, it will be sent to the State Duma for consideration. The draft law was prepared by Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, at the request of the Yabloko faction deputies.

At the moment, the draft initiative is undergoing legal examination in the apparatus of the Legislative Assembly. After the examination, the bill will be put to a vote, and also sent by the party to other regional parliaments, where there are deputies from Yabloko (Moscow, Karelia and Pskov), so that they could submit the bill to their regional parliaments too.

“Cancellation of the “foreign agent” status was one of the main points of the Yabloko programme in the past Duma elections. Almost every week we see how the Ministry of Justice adds good people with an active civil position and honest Russian media and NGOs to the discriminatory lists of “foreign agents”. We must fight against this arbitrariness of false stigmatisation of dissenting citizens and organisations, including in the legislative and legal field,” Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of the party, commented on the legislative initiative.

If the Yabloko faction’s initiative “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in Order to Exclude the Provisions on Persons Performing the Functions of a Foreign Agent” is adopted, more than 30 acts of federal legislation will be subject to amendment, addition, suspension, or invalidation.

Since the beginning of 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice has entered 11 media outlets, 42 journalists and 9 NGOs into the register of “foreign agents”. These organisations and persons were added to the list of more than 200 “foreign agents” entered by the Russian authorities in the corresponding registers in 2013 – 2020. The list of “foreign agents” is updated almost daily.

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