YABLOKO held a march on May 1 despite the authorities’ ban (video)
Press Release May 1, 2009
YABLOKO’s anti-crisis meeting on May 1 ended with an unsanctioned march from the Luzhkov Bridge to the Tretyakov Gallery.
Part of the participants of the meeting gathering at Bolotnaya square (several hundred people) went along Lavrushinsky Pereulok chanting “Authorities under Public Control!”, “No to the Ban on Demonstrations” and “Observe the Constitution!”.
“We have shown to the bureaucrats that they will not be able to silence us and prohibit realization of our constitutional right to demonstrations,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, the party leader, who was heading the column of the demonstrators. This time none of the participants of the demonstration was arrested.
About 600 people participated in the meeting at Bolotnaya square: they represented different associations and movements, initiative groups, national and cultural associations of Moscow, as well as ordinary Muscovites.
“We devoted our meeting to the anti-crisis measures, and our country turned out to be unprepared to the crisis,” said Sergei Mitrokhin opening the meeting. According to the YABLOKO’s leader, ‘the whole system which developed in our country for the past 20 years, turned out to be unprepared to the crisis – politically, socially and economicaly”.
See Sergei Mitrokhin’s speech
“This is the system where the full power belongs to the commercialized, corrupt and parasitical bureaucracy, which enlaced our country with its net as a spider, not only does it rule the country, but also earn with the help of the country. This bureaucracy devours budgets of all levels and types, including our household budgets,” said Mitrokhin.
He also voiced the key points of YABLOKO’s anti-crisis programme, “We propose that national resources of the country should serve the interests of the society rather than tycoons or bureaucracy. YABLOKO demands that concentration of land resources in the hands of moneybags should be stopped, we demand that these lands should go for building of housing for free,” said Mitrokhin. He also noted that monetary resources allotted to support of banks and tycoons should go to such measures.
Another step out of the crisis, according to the party programme, will be public control over natural monopolies, up to publication of all the commercial information on the monopolists in the Internet. Mitrokhin also stated that small-scale business requires support in deeds rather than in words. He said that if the state covers higher education fees for all Russian students this would represent an investment into the future.
YABLOKO’s anti-crisis slogans were supported by the leaders of the nation-wide association “For the Fair Market”. Ilya Khandrikov and Roman Zhigulsky spoke at the meeting on behalf of the association. They said that small companies should get property title for the premises they currently lease [from the state].
Chair of the Moscow City Duma Commission for Education and Science and member of the YABLOKO party Eugeny Bunimovich called the students to fight for gratuitous education like French students had showed in 1968. “The question ‘what can I do alone’ is redundant, we should unite and win,” he said.
See the speech of Eugeni Bunimovich
One of the Youth YABLOKO organisation leaders Olga Vlasova spoke about anti-crisis measures that should be taken in education. “We demand a moratorium on paid education and call the authorities to let the students finish their courses,” she said.
See the speech of film director Alexander Gnezdilov, member of the Youth Chamber with the Moscow City Duma
Eugenia Chirikova, leader of the movement for the Protection of the Khimki Forest, shared the experience of her organisation which for two years already had been fighting against construction of a paid road Moscow – St.Petersburg that can destroy a unique nature reservation area. She called everyone to participate in this fight as “other forests are waiting for their turn [to be ruined]”.
See the speech of Eugenia Chirikova
Muhammat Minachev, Chairman of the Tatar Vatan party, also made a speech at the meeting. In his speech he highlighted the point that activists of national minorities organisations had been suffering persecutions on behalf of law enforcement agencies.
Speech of Galina Mikhalyova, Executive Secretary of the Gender faction of the YABLOKO party
Representatives of the initiative groups of the citizens were also given tribune. However, the key slogan of the YABLOKO action “Authorities under Public Control!” united everyone.
