European Forum

Russian SD Youth chairman and state company employee fired for political activity

On June 24th Evgeny Konovalov, Chairman of the Russian Social Democratic Union of Youth (RSDUY) and member of the Executive Committee of the Union of Social Democrats (lead by Mikhail Gorbachev) was dismissed from a Russian state company for his political and public activity.

Three weeks beforehand, on June 3rd, Mr Konovalov was hired as head of the advertising and marketing department in the state company “Russian Post”, which is directly subordinated to the Ministry of Communications. During this short period he managed to find and suggest several ways to increase the company’s profit. Some of those suggestions were already in the process of implementation. Nonetheless on June 23rd the company’s headquarters found out he was an oppositional political activist and he was fired the next day. No attempt was made to even hide the actual reason of dismissal in front of Mr Konovalov’s colleagues (there is an audio recording proving it), however he was forced under threats to sign a cancellation of an employment contract on basis of “mutual approval of parties”.

RSDUY members are extremely indignant by such pressure from the authorities. The organisation believes that the Russian authorities are effectively issuing a ban on profession for oppositionists. Russia is now completely declining to totalitarianism as the government controls all spheres of life, persecuting oppositionists not only on a political level but interfering in their private lives.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s official reaction followed immediately; he is shocked and outraged by the situation: “What kind of democracy can we talk about in such a state of affairs? We can expect that hundreds of people who have […] views different from the views of the authorities can be subject to persecution”.

As shareholder of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Mr Gorbachev asked its editorial staff to carry out an investigation into the dismissal of Evgeny Konovalov.

RSDUY came out with a public appeal asking for solidarity and support from the socialist organisations and assistance in spreading this information as well as in putting pressure on the Russian government to stop persecuting oppositional politicians. They greatly value international support.

Source: RSDUY International Secretariate