Members of the Golos movement across Russia are being searched

Law enforcement officers conduct searches in the Moscow office of the Golos movement (included by the Ministry of Justice in the list of unregistered organizations-foreign agents), informed member of the council of the movement Vitaly Averin. In the morning, searches were held at the homes of three members of the movement’s council, and at the homes of its co-chairman, electoral expert Sergei Shpilkin, the press service of Golos said.

According to OVD-Info (recognized as a foreign agent), searches took place in Moscow, Pskov, Ivanovo, Perm and Chelyabinsk as part of a criminal case against Ivanovo activist Mikhail Gusev on discrediting the army (Article 208.3 of the Criminal Code). “Apparently, the Gusev case is just a pretext, and the searches themselves were carried out with only one goal: to punish the members of the Golos movement for its intransigence in the struggle for fair elections, a legal and humane state,” he said. mister Averin.

Searches and seizures took place at the home of Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the Golos movement, members of the Golos board Vitaly Kovin and Arkady Lyubarev (recognized as foreign media agents), as well as Irina Maltseva, Pskov observer of Golos Ekaterina Novikova, electoral expert, analyst Sergei Shpilkin. On October 4, a search took place at the head of the regional branch of Golos in the Chelyabinsk region, Natalia Guseva.

“Golos regards the incident as pressure on civilian observers on the eve of the 2024 presidential election campaign, which is less than 15 months away from the start. Such massive pressure on our participants took place in 2011-2012, against the backdrop of mass protests against dishonest and unfree elections,” the statement reads. message movement.

Association Voice was founded in 2000. In 2013, she was recognized as a foreign agent. In the same year, the Ministry of Justice suspended its activities for violating the law “On Foreign Agents”, as the association did not want to recognize this status. Since 2013, “Voice” began to work in the format of a social movement. Golos is engaged in election observation in Russia: in particular, it draws up a map of violations and engages experts to analyze the election process. In 2017, the OSCE honored Golos with an award for exceptional contributions to the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights.

Anastasia Larina