Anastasia Rybachenko

Anastasia Rybachenko (Russian: Анастасия Александровна Рыбаченко) (born 11 September 1991, Moscow) is a Russian political and civil activist. She worked as a spokeswoman of "Solidarnost" movement, co-managed the Moscow city branch of "Solidarnost" and managed the Youth Committee.

Education

Rybachenko studied Political science at the State Academic University for the Humanities in Moscow and graduated with a major in International Relations from Tallinn University of Technology.

Political career

Since December 2008 Rybachenko was a member of the democratic movement "Solidarnost", which was founded around the same time. She joined the political campaign staff of Sergei Davidis, a candidate in the Moscow City Duma 2009 election. Rybachenko took part in the implementation of the advertising campaign and collected signatures for the registration of the candidate.

In 2010 Rybachenko was elected to the Political Council of "Solidarnost" in Moscow^[1] and had been the youngest member of the management board. In 2011 she was re-elected.^[2]

Since 2010 Rybachenko represented "Solidarnost" at the Coordination Committee of the Strategy-31 campaign. The participants of the Strategy-31, among them the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Memorial human rights centre, The Other Russia party and "Solidarnost", organized a series of civic protests in support of the right to peaceful assembly guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.

In March 2010 Rybachenko became the Head of the Youth Committee of "Solidarnost" in Moscow.^[3] She organized meetings and pickets, public lectures of democratic politicians at the Moscow universities (Yulia Latynina, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Valery Panyushkin, Mikhail Delyagin, Alexei Navalny and lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky).

In December 2010 Rybachenko was among the observers of the Presidential elections in Belarus. After the demonstration of protest on 19 December, she was arrested ^[4] and sentenced to 15 days in jail but was released earlier due to the active support from the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Boris Nemtsov and later on from the Russian Embassy in Minsk.^[5]

After the release Rybachenko initiated a campaign in Moscow to support the Russian citizens imprisoned in Belarus due to their participation in the December protests. Activists of "Solidarnost" collected signatures,^[6] maintained media campaign and negotiated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^[7][8][9] The campaigners pursued the Russian authorities to engage more actively in the cases of two Russian citizens Ivan Gaponov and Artyom Breus, and later on in the case of Belarussian citizen Fedor Mirzayanov, in order, as activists maintained, to represent interests of his father, a citizen of Russia.^[10] While Gaponov and Breus were released, in the case of Mirzayanov activists only achieved representatives of the Russian embassy in Minsk to observe the trial,^[11][12] but Mirzayanov was nevertheless sentenced to three years in prison.

In March 2012 Rybachenko became the Head of the Press Office of "Solidarnost" in Moscow.^[13] She recruited and trained volunteers for the Press Office, managed communications with media, in particular on the campaign of "Solidarnost" to support Yevgeny Urlashov in mayor's election in the large Russian city of Yaroslavl.^[14][15]

On May 6, 2012 Rybachenko participated in a demonstration at the Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, to support fair elections of the President of Russia. She was then among those accused by the Russian authorities in the so-called Bolotnaya Square case. During the investigation Rybachenko studied in Estonia. With regard to the issue Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said that Rybachenko "should definitely submit an application to the corresponding institutions in Estonia. The most advisable would be apply for asylum."^[16] Rybachenko in response published an open letter to PM Ansip and stated that she does not need asylum as long as she has a student visa to stay in the EU. She also noted that her case is politically motivated, which is largely recognised in Europe, in particular by the European Parliament (resolutions 2013/2667(RSP) and 2014/2628(RSP)), Amnesty International and the European Court of Human Rights.^[17] In January 2014, before the investigation was completed, the case against Rybachenko was definitively closed due to the amnesty, Rybachenko announced her intention to return to Russia.^{[18] [19]}

References