Statement by Yabloko

The Yabloko party calls on the Russian President to pardon former Yukos legal specialist Svetlana Bakhmina, who has served over four years (more than half her sentence) in a penal colony in Mordovia.

Twice the court has refused her parole, in our view on fabricated grounds and without justification. Yet she has two under-age children and in December she is expecting a third child. In such cases the courts, as a rule, decide to grant parole.

Svetlana Bakhmina represents no danger to society and, if we leave aside whether the verdict was well-founded, she has been more than sufficiently punished.

We consider that it is inhumane and unjust to keep her in prison any longer. Svetlana Bakhmina’s children should see their mother. Her future child should not be born in a prison hospital.

Over the last days more than fifty thousand people have spoken out in her support, adding their signatures to an appeal to President Medvedev to show compassion and pardon Svetlana Bakhmina. Among them are very well known public figures, those prominent in science, scholarship and culture, politicians and journalists. Among them are many members of the Yabloko party and, of course, the party’s leaders.

We consider that if Dmitry Medvedev remains silent any longer in response to these appeals it could be interpreted that the authorities are disdainful of public opinion.

We call on President Medvedev to employ his constitutional right to issue a pardon to Svetlana Bakhmina as soon as possible.

Sergei Mitrokhin
Chairman, Yabloko