The formal reason for the refusal of the Prefecture of Central Administrative District of Moscow to approve Yabloko pickets was the “current epidemiological situation”.
The authorities refer to the decree of the Mayor of Moscow dated 8 June, 2020, which maintains the previously introduced ban on holding mass events due to the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
One of the initiators of the pickets, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Yabloko, Kirill Goncharov, notes that the reason for the ban on street actions is the authorities’ fear of the expression of the will of citizens: “By installing a bas-relief without taking into account the opinion of Moscow residents, the authorities exclude any discussion and impose a moratorium on any public discontent with the rehabilitation of Stalinism in the centre of Moscow,” Goncharov emphasises.
Yabloko lawyers are preparing a complaint to court regarding the refusal of the Prefecture of the Central Administrative District to hold a series of pickets for the dismantling of a bas-relief with Joseph Stalin in the vestibule of a Moscow metro station.
It should be noted that on 19 June, the authorised representative of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, Maxim Kruglov, and the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of the party, Kirill Goncharov, filed, in accordance with the law, a notice to the Prefecture of the plans to hold a series of pickets. The applicants for street actions were also the Chairman of the party, Nikolai Rybakov, and members of Moscow Yabloko.
The series of pickets was planned within the framework of the campaign against the placement of a bas-relief with Stalin in the centre of Moscow, which was launched on the Yabloko party’s website: thousands of citizens from all over the country signed a petition from Yabloko for the dismantling of the bas-relief, hundreds of signatures on paper were collected in the party’s offices in Moscow and the regions.
Main Image: Photo by Yevgeny Biyatov, RIA Novosti