The head of the only central agency in the independent elections in Russia is receiving a 5 -year prison sentence

On Wednesday, the head of the International Independent Electoral Agency in Russia was sentenced to five years in prison in a punitive colony after being convicted of working with an “undesirable organization”.

Gregory Milconnit, co -chair of the Gulus Movement, was arrested in August 2023. He admitted that he was not guilty of his trial.

Human rights activists say that the case against the 44 -year -old is part of a broader campaign on civil society that has been intensifying since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

News Outlet Mediazona said that Melkonyans has called for supporters in the courtroom and urged them not to be judged.

Gulus, who means “sound” and “voting” in Russian, angered the authorities first by publishing evidence of what he said was fraud in the 2011 parliamentary elections that led to opposition protests, then in the presidential vote that Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin for a third term in 2012.

The charges against Melkonyans were based on his alleged participation in the European Network in Montenegro from election control organizations, which link the International Agency for Control in the former communist countries in Europe and Central Asia. Enemo did not immediately respond to the comment.

Gulus says he had no interaction with Enemo because Russia banned the latter as “unwanted” in 2021.

“This ridiculous issue (against Melkonyants) challenges an easy explanation, not only for foreigners but even for ourselves,” Stanislav Andrechuk, co -chair of Gulus, told Reuters president.

Although he was appointed as a “foreign agent”, Golos continues his work in Russia.

Andricok said: “Although things are getting more difficult, we are still doing what we do,” Andrechuk said.

Last year, Gulus described the 2024 elections that Putin returned to separating the fifth semester with more than 88 percent of the votes as the most fragile and corrupt in the country’s history.

The Kremlin said that the result showed that the Russian people “integrate” around Putin, and Western attempts to photograph the elections as a ridiculous legitimacy.

Andricok said that the trial of Melkonyans should concern me to the outside world, because Gulus’s work was part of a struggle for democracy.

“The real democracy in Russia will not pose a military threat. But the authoritarian government will continue to threaten its neighbors,” he said.

OVD-info says more than 1,600 people have been imprisoned in Russia for political reasons. The Kremlin says it does not comment on individual issues, but Russia needs to support its laws and protect itself from sabotage.