A Moscow court has sentenced prominent Russian election monitor Grigory Melkonyants to five years in prison after finding him guilty of working for an “undesirable organization.”
The sentence, handed down by the Basmanny District Court on May 14, was the latest blow to Russia’s beleaguered civil society, which has been squeezed by draconian laws aimed at repressing dissent and outlawing government criticism.
“Don't worry, I'm not despairing," Mediazona quoted Melkonyants as telling supporters after the sentence was announced. "You shouldn't despair either!”
Melkonyants co-founded the election watchdog Golos, which rose to become one of Russia’s most prominent and respected monitoring groups.
In 2013, Golos was designated a “foreign agent” -- a label that imposes additional government compliance and carries negative Cold War-era connotations. Three years later, it was ordered liquidated as a nongovernmental organization.
Despite the findings, the organization continued to publish detailed, authoritative reports on local and national elections.
“The Russian authorities instigated this criminal case in order to silence one of the country’s most respected election observers," Amnesty International said in reaction to the sentencing.
"Grigory Melkonyants has committed no crime –- his only ‘offence’ was defending the right to free and fair elections in Russia. This is nothing more than a brazen and politically motivated clampdown on peaceful activism."
Russian prosecutors charged Melkonyants with working for an “undesirable organization,” another draconian measure that overlaps with the “foreign agent” designation.
Golos was not designated as “undesirable.” However the group previously was a member of an international consortium -- the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations -- which Russia had declared was “undesirable.”
Defense lawyers argued that Golos was no longer a member of the consortium at the time the European organization was outlawed,.
Melkonyants has been in custody since his arrest in August 2023.
