MOSCOW – The Russian government have opened a criminal investigation into one of the leaders of a prominent unbiased election tracking staff, his legal professional stated Thursday.
The case in opposition to Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia’s main election watchdog Golos, is the newest step within the months-long crackdown on Kremlin critics and rights activists that the federal government ratcheted up after sending troops into Ukraine.
Melkonyants’ legal professional Mikhail Biryukov advised The Associated Press that his consumer is going through fees of “organizing actions” of an “undesirable” group, a criminal offense punishable by up to six years in prison.
Golos has now not been categorized “undesirable” — a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense. But it was once a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, a group that was declared “undesirable” in Russia in 2021.
Police raided the houses of a additional 14 Golos contributors on Thursday in 8 other towns, Russia’s state news company RIA Novosti reported. Melkonyants’ condo in Moscow used to be additionally raided, and he used to be taken in for wondering.
In an interview with the AP Thursday, David Kankiya, a governing council member at Golos, connected the power at the staff to the impending regional elections in Russia in September and the presidential election this is anticipated to happen within the spring of 2024. “We see this as a form of political pressure and an attempt to stifle our activities in Russia,” Kankiya said.
Golos was founded in 2000 and has since played a key role in independent monitoring of elections in Russia. Over the years, it has faced mounting pressure from the authorities. In 2013, the group was designated as a “foreign agent” — a label that means further govt scrutiny and carries sturdy pejorative connotations. Three years later, it used to be liquidated as a non-governmental group by way of Russia’s Justice Ministry.
Golos has continued to operate without registering as an NGO, exposing violations at various elections, and 2021 it was added to a new registry of “foreign agents,” created by the Justice Ministry for groups that are not registered as a legal entity in Russia.
Independent reporters, critics, activists and opposition figures in Russia have come below expanding power from the federal government in recent times which intensified considerably amid the struggle in Ukraine. Multiple unbiased news retailers and rights teams were close down, categorized as “foreign agents,” or outlawed as “undesirable. Activists and critics of the Kremlin have faced criminal charges.
The authorities have also banned popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and have targeted other online services with hefty fines.
On Thursday, a Russian court imposed a 3-million-ruble ($32,000) fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine. The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.
According to Russian news reports, the court found that the YouTube video service, which is owned by Google, was guilty of not deleting videos with incorrect information about the conflict — which Russia characterizes as a “special military operation”.