One of the rulers of a dominant independent election tracking business was found guilty on Wednesday in a Moscow courtroom on suspicion of organizing the work of an “undesirable” organization and given a five-year sentence. The accusations have been discredited by Grigori Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia’s most influential vote guardian Golos. The state ratcheted up its clampdown on Kremlin reviewers and rights protesters after invading Ukraine in 2022 with the case against him as part of that effort. Melkonyants, 44, told a number of followers and reporters from the crystal defendant’s cage:” Aren’t worry, I’m not despairing. You don’t also feel hopeless”!
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Do you think Grigory Melkonyants ‘ accusations are motivated by politics?
Since it was established in 2000, Golos has closely monitored and exposed irregularities in every significant vote in Russia. It has over the centuries been subject to increasing force from the government. The organization was labeled as a “foreign broker” in 2013- a designation that implies more government scrutiny and has powerful disparaging connotations. The Russian Justice Ministry declared it a non-governmental firm three years later. Golos has continued to operate without an NGO registration, exposing irregularities in a number of elections, and in 2021 it was added to a new registration of “foreign agencies” for organizations that the Justice Ministry has created for those who are not in Russia registered as a legitimate institution. It has not been labeled as “undesirable,” which is a term that qualifies membership in for companies as a crime under the 2015 Constitution. However, when it was an NGO, it was a part of ENEMO, a team that was “undesirable” in Russia in 2021, and the accusations against Melkonyants came from that. In his final declaration to the court on Monday, which was released in full by separate news outlets Mediazona and Meduza, Melkonyants discussed how rights and freedoms are frequently taken for granted but look quite different from “behind bars,” and how important it is to “protect and support” them regularly. Golos wasn’t a part of ENEMO when it was outlawed in Russia, according to the defence, and Melkonyants had nothing to do with it. The internationally renowned poll expert and lawyer by education was detained in August of 2023 and has been held in custody ever since. The country’s top electoral body, the Central Election Commission, was chair of Russia at the time, and she reportedly expressed her support for the investigation by saying,” I would really like to hope that they will handle this objectively,” he said. Because of how frequently his condemnation was expert, it occasionally helped us a bit. Independent editors, critics, protesters, and opposition figures in Russia have experienced growing pressure from the government in recent years, which increased drastically as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. Numerous separate news sources and human rights organizations have been shut down, labeled “foreign agents” or declared “undesirable” in recent years. Criminal charges have been filed against thousands of Kremlin critics and activists. Following the ruling, the defense team for Melkonyants announced that they would file an appeal. According to attorney Mikhail Biryukov, who and other members of the defense team consider the case to be “politically motivated, pretentious,”” there is no evidence” of it. Because an unlawful, cruel verdict should not be made, we may struggle for Grigory’s release. In the charm procedure, it should not have. We all aspire to the rule of law, Biryukov said. According to Mediazona, he will have to offer less than half of the time he was given up because the moment he has previously spent in detention was taken into account. The renowned human rights organization Memorial, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, has named Melkonyants as a political slave.
