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14 MAY 2025
We demand the immediate release of Grigory Melkonyants and the repeal of his unjust sentence. Statement by the Council of Russian Human Rights Defenders
14 MAY 2025
We are outraged by the court verdict in respect of our colleague and friend Grigory Melkonyants,
the leader of the All-Russian Movement for Defence of Voters’ Rights “Golos”. This cruel sentence
is politically motivated, arbitrary and unjustified.
On May 14, 2025, the Basmanny Court of Moscow sentenced Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of
the “Golos” movement, to five years in prison in a general regime colony and banned him from
engaging in public activities for nine years after serving his sentence. Grigory was convicted under
part 3 of Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code, with charges of organising the work of an
“undesirable” organisation – the international organisation ENEMO, the European Network of
Election Monitoring Organisations. On May 12, the state prosecution requested six years in prison
for Melkonyants (the maximum term under this article).
For a decade and a half, the “Golos” movement has demonstrated the highest professional
standards of civilian control over elections, becoming a model for colleagues in many countries.
“Golos” developed and proposed a large-scale project for the reform of Russian electoral
legislation in accordance with the best international practices, persistently and consistently
trying to implement them in dialogue with the authorities. “Golos”’ contribution to the
development of civil society is invaluable. Having trained and involved hundreds of thousands of
people in practical activities, “Golos”, together with its partners, created the largest civic
movement in Russia – the movement of civilian election observers.
In his last word, Grigory noted: “[T]he entire accusation is based on unsubstantiated and
unreliable information from the operational staff [of law enforcement bodies], which has no
evidentiary value, and on the subsequent fabrication of conclusions that distort the content of the
documents attached to the case.” Moreover, it is the responses of the Ministry of Justice that
convincingly prove the absurdity of the unfounded accusation: “It follows from the first negative
response of the Ministry of Justice of Russia that the ENEMO has no structural units in our country.
It follows from the second response of the Ministry of Justice that the activities of the “Golos”
movement were not considered "undesirable”. There have also been no court or other decisions
banning or restricting “Golos”’ activities. Finally, the fact that the ENEMO and the “Golos”
movement are two different organisations is confirmed by the decisions of the authorised state
bodies, which included them in two different registers: the ENEMO is on the list of organisations
whose activities are considered “undesirable”, and the “Golos” movement is on the register of
so-called "foreign agents” (from the last word of Melkoniants).
Retaining power through election fraud has been and remains one of the most important goals
and characteristic features of the modern Russian state. The movement of civilian control over
elections and the non-governmental organisations involved in this control, first of all “Golos”,
have been the primary target of the authorities since the establishment of the “foreign agents”
legislation: “Golos” was the first to be forcibly included in the register of “foreign agents”.
There is no event of crime or corpus delicti in the case of Grigory Melkonyants. Moreover, this
unjust verdict is based not only on falsified evidence, but also on an unlawful legislative
framework.
Laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations”, which criminalise international
cooperation, are impossible in a democratic society; they violate the Constitution of Russia and
its international obligations in the field of human rights.
Today’s verdict is, in fact, self-revealing for the authorities: this is a “confession.” At the same
time, this verdict is also an obvious recognition of many years of highly professional work by
Grigory Melkonyants and the “Golos” movement in his person.
We express our solidarity and support to Grigory and all colleagues in the “Golos” movement.
We demand that the Russian authorities repeal the verdict due to the absence of a crime event,
immediately release Grigory and drop all charges against him!
Signatures:
- Galina Arapova
- Svetlana Astrakhantseva
- Alexander Cherkasov
- Sergey Davidis
- Leonid Drabkin
- Yuri Dzhibladze
- Svetlana Gannushkina
- Sergey Krivenko
- Sergey Lukashevsky
- Karinna Moskalenko
- Oleg Orlov
- Yan Rachinsky
- Olga Sadovskaya
- Elena Shakhova
- Ekaterina Sokirianskaya
- Lev Ponomarev
- Natalya Taubina
- Alexander Verkhovsky
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