The top of Russia’s solely unbiased election watchdog was sentenced on Wednesday to 5 years in a penal colony after being discovered responsible of working with an “undesirable group.”
Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the Golos motion, was arrested in August 2023. He pleaded not responsible at his trial.
Human rights campaigners say the case towards the 44-year-old is a part of a wider crackdown on civil society that has intensified since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Information outlet Mediazona stated Melkonyants known as out to supporters within the courtroom and urged them to not be downhearted over the decision.
Golos, which suggests each “voice” and “vote” in Russian, first angered the authorities by publicizing proof of what it stated was fraud in a 2011 parliamentary election that led to opposition protests, after which within the presidential vote that returned Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin for a 3rd time period in 2012.
The costs towards Melkonyants had been primarily based on his alleged involvement with the Montenegro-based European Community of Election Monitoring Organisations, which hyperlinks watchdogs in former communist international locations in Europe and Central Asia. ENEMO didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Golos says it has had no interplay with ENEMO since Russia banned the latter as “undesirable” in 2021.
“This absurd case [against Melkonyants] defies simple rationalization, not just for foreigners however even for ourselves,” Golos co-chair Stanislav Andreichuk informed Reuters.
Regardless of being designated as a “international agent,” Golos continues its work in Russia.
“Although issues are getting more durable, we’re nonetheless doing what we do,” Andreichuk stated.
Final 12 months, Golos described the 2024 election that returned Putin for a fifth time period with greater than 88 per cent of the vote as essentially the most fraudulent and corrupt within the nation’s historical past.
The Kremlin stated the consequence confirmed that the Russian folks had “consolidated” round Putin, and Western makes an attempt to painting the election as illegitimate had been absurd.
Andreichuk stated the Melkonyants trial ought to matter to the skin world, as a result of Golos’s work was a part of a battle for democracy.
“An actual democracy in Russia would not be a army menace. However an authoritarian authorities will maintain threatening its neighbours,” he stated.
Rights group OVD-Information says greater than 1,600 persons are at present imprisoned in Russia on political grounds. The Kremlin says it doesn’t touch upon particular person circumstances, however that Russia must uphold its legal guidelines and defend itself towards subversive exercise.
