Russia has designated the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, chaired by Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, as an ‘undesirable organisation’.
Background
The ‘undesirable’ tag is used by Russian authorities to ban the activities of organisations it deems to pose a threat to the state, and means that any Russians who cooperate with them or share their content can face prosecution.
In its announcement, the Russian prosecutor’s office noted that HRF had designated Russia as a ‘fully authoritarian regime’ in its ‘Tyranny Tracker’ project.
HRF Chief Legal and Policy Officer Javier El-Hage responded: ‘We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. By criminalising our organization — even threatening with imprisonment those who collaborate with us — for having a research project that documents how (President Vladimir) Putin’s dictatorship is a ‘fully authoritarian regime,’ the Kremlin does nothing but confirm our assessment.’
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
