The Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit for the liquidation of the St. Petersburg branch of PARNAS

The main department of the Ministry of Justice for St. Petersburg filed a lawsuit in the city court for the liquidation of the St. Petersburg branch of the “Party of People’s Freedom” (PARNAS). The hearing of the claim is scheduled for February 28.

Since last November, the department’s activities have been suspended by a court decision due to violations of the law on political parties. The court pointed out that the St. Petersburg PARNAS did not provide reports on the holding of conferences, on the change of management and some other necessary information. The department had to correct the deficiencies by December 1.

The head of the department is Natalya Gryaznevich, St. Petersburg municipal deputy. Last December, she was entered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents and left Russia.

In January, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, the regional branch of PARNAS in Chuvashia was liquidated. Inaccuracies in the documents were also formal reasons. The chairman of the party Igor Malov stated that the real reasons for the persecution are politically motivated and connected with the party’s anti-war position.

• The PARNAS party was registered in 1991. From 2012 until his death, the co-chairman of the party was Boris Nemtsov. In the summer of 2021, before the elections to the State Duma, the Ministry of Justice notified the leadership of the party about the temporary suspension of its state registration due to “part of the indicators going beyond familiarity” in the documentation. In the summer of 2022, information appeared in the mass media about the suspension of PARNAS activities due to the fact that its chairman, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, had left Russia.