Arrests outside Russian Supreme Court: protest in Moscow over removal of "Yabloko" party from elections is being broken up. VIDEO
In Moscow, outside the Supreme Court building, security forces carried out mass arrests of activists and members of the public who had gathered whilst the Yabloko party’s appeal against the decision to remove its federal list from the State Duma elections was being heard.
According to party representatives, at least 35 people were detained, reports Censor.NET.
Details
Kirill Goncharov, head of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, said that people were detained without any legal grounds. Police vans carrying the detainees were taken to police stations. Among those detained is party activist Yevgeniya Titova.
The Supreme Court’s press office stated that the hearing would be held in open session, but that any online broadcast of the proceedings was prohibited.
Allegations against the party
On Monday, 10 August, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld a claim to exclude the Yabloko party from the State Duma elections. The lawsuit was filed by the pro-Putin party ‘Rodina’. A representative of ‘Rodina’ claimed that, in his view, there were signs of extremism in Yabloko’s election manifesto. This refers to the demand to conclude a ceasefire agreement in Ukraine.
For their part, representatives of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation and Rosfinmonitoring accused Yabloko of receiving foreign funding.
