Prominent Kremlin critic Dmitry Gudkov was detained and faced possible jail time Tuesday (1 May) as authorities ramped up pressure on dissenters ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections.
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Jonny Tickle Open Russia, an organization founded by disgraced former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is to close its operations and shut its regional offices over concerns its members and supporters may soon be targeted for prosecution.
The move comes as the group’s executive director, Andrey Pivovarov, says the Russian government’s plan to strengthen the law on foreign
“undesirable” organizations could lead to people involved being targeted by the courts.
Although Open Russia itself isn’t registered as
“undesirable,” the London-based international branch of the group, called the Open Russia Civic Movement, is on the list. In 2017, when the British organization was given the designation, the prosecutor general’s spokesman, Alexander Kurenoy, said the move would not affect the Russian branch. However, Pivovarov thinks that might soon change.
Human Rights Watch
A group of Russian lawmakers introduced three bills on May 4, 2021 that would add new dangerous tools to the already significant arsenal of legislative weapons for the country’s crackdown on dissenting voices, Human Rights Watch said today.
Two of the bills introduced in the State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, would expand the impact of Russia’s law on “undesirable” organizations. The third would enable authorities to impose lengthy bans on potential candidates for Duma seats if they are associated with groups deemed “extremist” by the Russian authorities, even if they were associated with the group before it received that designation.