MOSCOW: Russia has detained the co-chair of a prominent independent vote-monitoring group, Golos (Voice), Grigory Melkonyants, said the organization on its website on Thursday night.
According to Russian agencies, the law-enforcement officers arrived in Melkonyants’ apartment early in the morning and searched his home before taking to him the main department of the Russian Investigative Committee for charges.
A court is likely to decide Melkonyants’ fate today as whether he will remain in custody, Golos said quoting the leader’s lawyer Mikhail Biryukov. The accused may face up to six years in prison for working with an international organization declared “undesirable” by Russian authorities, his lawyer said.
In a video published by RIA news agency Melkonyants can be seen standing next to three men in plain clothes inside his home while one of them ordered Melkonyants to put the time on a paper he was signing — 6.45 a.m. (0345 GMT)
Moscow-based Golos is monitoring election campaigns in various Russian regions ahead of polls slated in September.
The group first annoyed the government by publicizing evidence of an alleged fraud in a 2011 parliamentary vote that sparked opposition protests, and in the presidential election that returned Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin for a third term in 2012.
The Russian authorities tagged the group a foreign agent but it continued to work there even when the country intensified a crackdown on dissent after invading Ukraine in 2022.
Golos said the prosecution is likely to be related to the Montenegro-based non-governmental organization; European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO).
It said Golos stopped its cooperation with ENEMO after Russia banned activities of the network in 2021.
According to RIA, Russian authorities searched homes of a total of 14 members of Golos in eight regions.
