Russian court removes Yabloko candidate over campaign violations

A Yabloko party candidate in Chelyabinsk has been barred from running in the State Duma election over alleged illegal campaigning and copyright violations, including the use of Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” and a quote by Soviet-era human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov, ASTRA reports.

According to Yabloko’s press service, the Chelyabinsk Regional Court upheld a lawsuit filed by Artem Kungurtsev, a candidate from the Greens party, and cancelled the registration of Yabloko candidate Yaroslav Shcherbakov.

“The lawsuit was based on alleged illegal campaigning and copyright violations. Among the claims were the appearance in Shcherbakov’s video of Banksy’s famous work ‘Girl with Balloon’, an image of human rights activist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov with the quote ‘The disunity of humanity threatens it with extinction’, as well as the use of the words of Soviet diplomat Andrei Gromyko: ‘Better 10 years of negotiations than one day of war,’” Yabloko’s press service said.

The lawsuit also cited a video of Shcherbakov speaking at a Yabloko party congress, where he discussed repression in Russia and called for an immediate agreement on a ceasefire.

By Vafa Guliyeva