7 July 2015

Source: HRO.org (info) 

• Moscow city & Moscow region  Human rights defenders  Right of association  Electoral rights  Harassment of activists

On 7 July 2015 members of the Council of Human Rights Activists issued a special statement on the searches and interrogations of activists working for the Golos NGO in Moscow. Golos is the leading organization in Russia for independent monitoring of elections.

The statement, in part, reads: "Searches are being conducted at the homes of our colleagues from the organization for the protection of voters’ rights, Golos. They are being conducted in a purposefully barbaric manner – at 7 am on the pretext of a water leak people burst into the apartment of Golos’ executive director Grigory Melkonyants. Then searches are conducted at the homes of the executive director of the Golos Interregional Public Foundation Tatyana Troinova and member of the Golos movement Roman Udot.

“At the same time searches began in the organization’s Moscow office. A pretext for the searches was a case of failure to pay taxes by one of the members of the organization in Samara. The case should have been closed under the amnesty. However, it is being used for purposes of harassment. The searches are accompanied by confiscation of computers and documentation. They are clearly designed to prevent the creation of a new ‘Map of Electoral Violations’ before the upcoming regional elections in which candidates from a democratic coalition will participate” – the authors of the statement assert.

"We express our solidarity with our persecuted colleagues. We are convinced that the harassment of Golos has a clearly defined political character”, the statement stressed.

Authors of the statement are prominent civil society activists and human rights defenders Liudmila Alekseeva, Valery Borshchev, Yury Vdovin, Svetlana Gannushkina, Sergei Kovalev, Lev Ponomarev and Liliya Shibanova.