It is a legal label that closes the door on the legal work of NGOs in the country and turns collaboration with them into a crime. Organization that investigates and reports human rights violations speaks of “dictatorial policies” and denounces the “skyrocketing rise in repression” in Russia
The Russian Ministry of Justice declared Human Rights Watch an “undesirable organization”, a classification that, in practice, prohibits the group from operating in the country and makes participation in its activities a crime, deepening the wave of repression against independent organizations since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The decision was registered on November 28th in the official register of the Ministry of Justice, but the Attorney General’s Office had already signed the order on November 10th, using the “undesirable organizations” law that allows foreign entities to be banned and punish, with fines or prison sentences, those who participate in their activities. However, for Human Rights Watch it is not the first cut: in 2022, shortly after the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow forced the closure of the NGO’s office in the capital, although the team continued to collect information remotely about arbitrary detentions, censorship and war crimes attributed to Russian forces.
“Nothing has changed in our work, what has changed, dramatically, is the Government’s total adherence to dictatorial policies, the skyrocketing rise in repression and the scale of war crimes that its forces are committing in Ukraine”, reacted Philippe Bolopion, executive director of the organization.
The new ban joins a growing list of targets for “undesirables” and “foreign agents” legislation, which has been used to remove historic Russian NGOs, international foundations, independent media outlets and opposition-linked groups from the public sphere. It is not an abrupt departure, but rather a slow dismantling, piece by piece, of the civic space that survived from the 90s.
Created in 1978, Human Rights Watch is today a global network of investigators that documents abuses in dozens of countries and tries to bring cases to governments, courts and international bodies.
Now, with the formal entry into the Russian list of “undesirables”, any initiative with his signature (such as a recorded interview, a collection of documents or a mere meeting) can now be used as a basis for criminal proceedings, in a country where independent work on human rights increasingly falls outside the borders.
