Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has sentenced Grigory Melkonyants, the head of Russia’s only independent election monitoring group, to five years in a penal colony for organizing the activities of an “undesirable” organization, independent outlet Mediazona reported earlier today.
Melkonyants, co-chair of the Golos movement, was arrested in 2023. He pleaded not guilty at his trial.
During a court hearing on Monday, May 12, state prosecutors requested a six-year sentence — the maximum penalty under the charge.
Diplomatic representatives from the United States, France, the Czech Republic, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, New Zealand, and the European Union were present at sentencing. According to Mediazona, Melkonyants addressed his supporters in the courtroom, urging them not to lose heart over the verdict.
“The Russian authorities instigated this criminal case in order to silence one of the country’s most respected election observers. Grigory Melkonyants has committed no crime – his only ‘offence’ was defending the right to free and fair elections in Russia. This is nothing more than a brazen and politically motivated clampdown on peaceful activism,” commented Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director.
“[He] must be released unconditionally and his conviction quashed. The legislation that was used to target him must be repealed,” she added. Amnesty International considers Melkonyants a prisoner of conscience, as does the Russian Nobel Peace Prize-winning NGO Memorial.
Golos — which translates to both “voice” and “vote” in Russian — first drew the Kremlin's ire after publishing reports of alleged fraud in the 2011 parliamentary elections, which helped trigger nationwide opposition protests. It later challenged the legitimacy of the 2012 presidential election that returned Vladimir Putin to power for a third term.
Last year, Golos condemned the 2024 presidential election — which Vladimir Putin “won” with over 88% of the vote — as the most fraudulent and corrupt in Russia’s history.
The charges against Melkonyants stemmed from his alleged involvement with the Montenegro-based European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), a coalition of watchdog groups from post-communist countries in Europe and Central Asia.
Golos has said it has had no ties with ENEMO since the group was declared an “undesirable organization” by the Russian authorities in 2021. Amnesty International has described the designation as “a nebulous term arbitrarily used by the Russian authorities to ban any organization they regard as a threat and to criminalize any association with [them].”
“This absurd case [against Melkonyants] defies easy explanation, not only for foreigners but even for ourselves,” Golos co-chair Stanislav Andreichuk told Reuters.
In 2013, Russian authorities labeled Golos a “foreign agent” — a designation used to discredit and restrict NGOs receiving foreign funding and engaging in “political activity.” After that, the original legal entity was liquidated, but the Golos movement continued its work informally as a civic initiative — and continues to do so to this day. “Even though things are getting tougher, we're still doing what we do,” Andreichuk added.
Melkonyants’s trial should resonate internationally, he said, as Golos’s work is part of a broader fight for democracy in Russia. “A real democracy in Russia wouldn't be a military threat. But an authoritarian government will keep threatening its neighbours,” he said.
An ongoing count by human rights group OVD-Info has shown that over 1,600 individuals are currently imprisoned in Russia on political grounds. A further 3,300 are currently being persecuted.