The head of the only independent election guard in Russia was sentenced to five years in a criminal colony on Wednesday after he was guilty of working with an “undesirable organization”.
Grigory Melconyants, co-chair of the Golos movement, was arrested in August 2023. He was not guilty of his process.
Human rights fighters say that the case against the 44-year-old part of a more comprehensive approach to civil society is intensified since Ukraine’s full invasion of Russia in February 2022.
According to News Outlet Mediazona, Melconyants called the followers in the courtroom and asked them not to be depressed by the judgment.
Golos, which both means “voice” and “coordination” in Russian, initially annoyed the authorities by publishing evidence of what was fraudulent in a parliamentary election from 2011, which led to opposition protests, and then in the presidential vote that Vladimir Putin returned for a third term for a third term.
The indictment against Melconyants was based on his alleged participation in the European network based in Montenegro of election surveillance organizations, which combines guard dogs in former communist countries in Europe and Central Asia. Enemo did not immediately answer a request for comment.
Golos says it has no interaction with Enemo since Russia banned as “undesirable” in 2021.
“This absurd case (against Melconyants) not only refers to foreigners, but also for ourselves,” the co-chair from Golos Stanislav Andreichuk told Reuters.
Although Golos was shown as a “foreign agent”, he continues his work in Russia.
“Although things are becoming more difficult, we still do what we do,” said Andreichuk.
Last year Golos described the 2024 elections, which Putin brought back for a fifth term with more than 88 percent of the votes than the most fraudulent and corrupt most in the history of the country.
The Kremlin said the result showed that the Russian people in Putin had “consolidated” and western attempts to present the election as illegitimate were absurd.
Andreichuk said that the melconyant process should be important for the outside world because Golos’ work was part of a struggle for democracy.
“A real democracy in Russia would not be a military threat. But an authoritarian government is further threatened,” he said.
According to the OVD-Info Rights Group, more than 1,600 people are currently imprisoned in Russia for political reasons. The Kremlin says it does not comment on individual cases, but that Russia has to maintain its laws and protect itself from subversive activities.
