Statement of Scientific and Information Center "Memorial" concerning rejection of former political prisoner Yuli Ribakov's registration as candidate for State Duma Deputy chair

Political Prisoner's Day, 30 October 2003, was marked by the rejection of former political prisoner Yuli Ribakov's registration as a candidate for the State Duma Deputy chair.

A district commission made such a decision resting not upon the Law on the Elections but upon the order by the corrupted power to bar independent and honest Ribakov from the newly convoked Duma. Ribakov's authority is such as his rivals can get to the Duma only after he is debarred from taking part in the elections.

Human rights activist Ribakov is inconvenient for the power. From 1989 till today, Yuli Ribakov, a deputy of the Leningrad Soviet first and then a State Duma Deputy, has been defending rights and freedoms of unfairly persecuted people and his views - views of the human rights activist and humanist, which he spent 6 years in prison for.

A new totalitarian regime has been finally established in the country today. The KGB officer, dictator, who has unleashed state terror in the country, is at the head of it. The methods are still the same: falsification and elimination. And we have no choice but to defend out civil stand and independence.