Newsletters / Let Pivovarov run for the Duma!
The documents required for Andrei Pivovarov to register as a candidate for the State Duma elections have not been provided to his team by the pre-trial detention centre. Although it would only take minutes to make a copy of his passport, staff at the detention facility promise to do so within 30 days. If they are not issued by 8 July, Andrei will not be able to take part in the elections.
Pivovarov is a Russian politician, who was about to announce his candidacy for the State Duma when criminal proceedings were initiated against him and he was taken off a taxing plane on May 29. After a search and interrogation, the politician was taken to Krasnodar, where a court ordered him to be detained for two months and placed him in the local pre-trial detention facility, under the pretext that he was planning to escape. The Memorial Human Rights Centre have declared him a political prisoner. Amnesty international issued an open letter urging Russia to, among others, release Pivovarov.
On 3 July, the Yabloko Party Council included Andrei Pivovarov in their regional list of candidates. Andrei Pivovarov will apply for registration and will use his candidate status as a platform to talk about arbitrary rule in Russia, political prisoners and the need for regime change. He is not guilty of the charges brought against him. He was taken into custody because he wanted to legally stand in the elections.