The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has called on the Russian authorities to guarantee freedom of expression and the right of the population to freely participate in electoral processes, after the opposition party Yabloko has been excluded from the legislative elections scheduled for next September.
"The High Commissioner urges the authorities to respect freedom of expression and the right of citizens to participate fully and freely in electoral processes. Peaceful dissent must never be criminalized," his office indicated in a message disseminated on social media.
Turk has expressed his concern not only about the disqualification of Yabloko, considered the only political party openly opposed to the war in Ukraine, but also about the sentence of more than 11 years in prison imposed on its vice president, Lev Shlosberg.
The opposition leader, known for his anti-war stance, was sentenced for discrediting and spreading false information about the Russian Armed Forces in the context of the war in Ukraine, after intervening in a debate with a historian in which he positioned himself against the invasion and reposting on his social media the cover of a British newspaper critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This Monday, at least 35 supporters of the party were arrested while trying to attend the appeal hearing before the Russian Supreme Court, which ultimately confirmed the ban on Yabloko, despite its leader, Nikolai Ribakov, rejecting the accusations of alleged "foreign funding".