Or those in charge of unlawful campaigning must be punished

Press Release, 15.02.2018

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova filed a second complaint with the Central Electoral Commission of Russia demanding to immediately apply to the Channel One so that to provide Grigory Yavlinsky and other candidates for the presidential post with the same amount of time as was allocated for Oliver Stone’s “Interview with Putin” film or re-examine the fact of showing the film during presidential election campaign, recognise it unlawful and bring those in charge of unlawful campaigning to justice.

After the first appeal of Emilia Slabunova to the Central Electoral Commission, the commission proposed to Channel One to interrupt the broadcast of the film and continue it after the elections. After that Channel One canceled the broadcasting of the final episode of the film scheduled on Thursday.

According to Yabloko, as Channel One did not disseminate positive information about other candidates in the specified period of time in the amount of air time allocated for the film “Putin”, therefore, it violated Article 40 of the law “On the Elections of the President of the Russian Federation,” according to which candidates enjoy equal rights.

The Central Electoral Commission did not recognise the broadcast of the film as unlawful pre-election campaigning, despite the fact that broadcasting of the film violates articles 49, 50, 51, and 52 of the law “On Elections of the President of the Russian Federation”. The film disseminates information conducive to and formation of a positive attitude of voters to the incumbent president, the production and placement of this film is not paid from the election fund of Vladimir Putin, the show takes place before the allowed period of campaigning in the media, Yabloko insists.

“I am asking you to either restore the violated rights of Candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation, Grigory Yavlinsky, as well as the rights of other candidates, through an immediate appeal to the Channel One television company and provide an opportunity for the candidates to disseminate information about them in this channel in the same amount of airtime that was allocated to broadcasting of Oliver Stone’s four-part documentary “Putin” or to re-evaluate the distribution of the material, recognise it unlawful and take legal measures to bring to justice those in charge of dissemination of the material,” runs the complaint of Emilia Slabunova.