Vitaly Shlyarov

Vitaly Shlyarov, 2016

Vitaly Valentinovich Schkljarow ( Russian Виталий Валентинович Шкляров , Belarusian Віталь Шкляраў / Wital Schkljarau; born 11. June 1976 in Homel , Belarussian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Belarusian and American political scientist and campaign manager .

biography

Germany

In 2002 Vitaly Schkljarow graduated from the University of Vechta with a degree in social sciences and political science . While studying in Germany, he began his career as a political advisor and became one of Angela Merkel's election workers .

United States

In 2008, Shkelyarov moved to the United States, where he volunteered for Barack Obama's presidential campaign . In 2012 he became an election worker in the US state of Wisconsin for Tammy Baldwin , who won the election and became the first woman and openly gay senator in the US Senate . In the same year, Schkljarov mobilized the campaign for Obama in the city of Milwaukee , which was awarded two prizes by the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC). In 2014 he worked for the campaign for the election of Ro Khanna to the US Congress , which ended unsuccessfully. In 2016, he joined the staff of US presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders , who was ultimately defeated by Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party's primary .

Russia and Georgia

Schkljarov as a speaker in an election campaign in Moscow, 2017

In May 2016, Shkelyarov was invited to work for the election campaign of Russian opposition politician Dmitri Gudkov , who, however , only finished second behind Gennady Onishchenko in the parliamentary elections in September 2016 .

In 2017, Shkelyarov worked for the headquarters of the United Democrats , headed by Maxim Katz , which campaigned for over 1,000 opposition candidates, most of them from the Yabloko party , in Moscow city ​​districts . Later in the year, he led Xenia Sobchak's online campaign for the 2018 presidential election in Russia . In 2018 he supported Grigol Vashadze's campaign for the 2018 presidential election in Georgia , who finished second in the runoff election behind Salome Zurabishvili .

In 2019 he worked for Darya Besedina's campaign for the local elections to the Moscow city parliament. Besedina received 37.60% of the vote and was elected to the Moscow City Duma.

Arrest in Belarus

In an interview on June 1, 2020 with the Belarusian version of Radio Free Europe , Shkelyarov predicted that President Lukashenko would be defeated in the upcoming presidential election and described the ongoing protests . He was arrested on July 29th while visiting his mother in Gomel . He was accused of organizing actions to disrupt public order. With reference to anonymous representatives of the Belarusian secret service , it was alleged that he advised those responsible for the blog of Sergei Tikhanovsky , who was arrested after the start of the presidential campaign in Belarus in 2020 . Shklyarov's lawyer described the torture practice in the SISO No. 1 remand prison in Minsk and compared it to the gulag . The European Federation of Journalists urged the Belarusian authorities to release the detainee, and Russian human rights defenders such as Civic Support and the Moscow Helsinki Group wrote to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and EU Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović to intervene in favor of the detainee. On October 14, 2020, the pre-trial detention was converted to house arrest and was released on October 19. On October 28, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Shklyarov had returned to the United States. Schkljarov, who was then examined by a doctor in the USA, has an American diplomatic passport, and his wife and son are US citizens.

Web links

Commons : Vitaliy Shklyarov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Friedrich Schmidt: Opposition in Belarus: White bracelets are your mark FAZ, August 9, 2020. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
• From Novaya Gazeta : Demonstratively insulted In: Decoder , accessed on June 18, 2021.
• Andrew Roth: Can Russia have a 'Bernie' revolution? A Sanders campaign veteran says he's trying. The Washington Post , October 11, 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2021.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ I want to reach the constituency of Navalny Newtimes, October 25, 2017. Accessed June 18, 2021 (Russian)
2. ↑ Tammy Baldwin (English)
3. ↑ AAPC: 2013 Pollie Awards
4. ↑ Marc Bennetts: Bernie Sanders' campaign strategist takes on Kremlin The Times , September 11, 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2021
5. ↑ Radio Swaboda, June 1, 2020 (Belarusian)
6. ↑ The number of protesters arrested in Belarus has fallen Voicemail.de , October 19, 2020. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
7. ↑ Russian and international human rights organizations demand the release of Vitaly Schkljarow Novaya Gazeta, August 14, 2020. Accessed June 19, 2021. (Russian)
8. ↑ The political technologist Schkljarow, imprisoned in Belarus in July, returned to the USA. TASS, October 28, 2020. Accessed June 19, 2021. (Russian)