Russia tightens clamps on rights groups
Police raid homes of advocates for Team Against Torture. One center is shut down.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed amendments introducing into law life imprisonment as the punishment for treason. Previously, the maximum sentence on this charge, which has been increasingly levied against Russians in recent years, was 20 years.
Police on Friday searched the homes of three lawyers with Team Against Torture, a rights group that advocates against torture and offers legal aid.
The group said in an online statement that the raids in Nizhny Novgorod, a large city in western Russia, came as part of a criminal inquiry launched earlier. No other details were given, out of concern for the safety of the people the group is helping, the statement said.
On Thursday, a court in Moscow ordered the shutdown of the Sova Center, a prominent nongovernmental organization that monitors racism and xenophobia in Russia, as well as implementation of anti-extremism laws.
The authorities accused the organization of violating its legal registration in Moscow by participating in events outside the Russian capital.
This year, Russia’s oldest rights group — the Moscow Helsinki Group — was shut down over the same violation. The group appealed the decision, but an appellate court on Friday up- held it.
In a statement after the court hearing, the Sova Center rejected the accusations and vowed to appeal the ruling, continuing its work in the meantime.
The move against the group prompted criticism in the West.
German government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said Russia’s domestic crackdown appeared to have been stepped up in parallel with the attack on Ukraine.
“This closure adds to a sad list of important nongovernmental organizations shut down by the Russian government, including Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group,” Hoffmann said.
“It’s a fact that there is no freedom of opinion anymore in Russia,” she told reporters in Berlin.
Hoffmann also accused the Kremlin of “constantly seeking new excuses to extend” the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is facing a new trial in coming weeks on charges of extremism and yet one more criminal inquiry, this time on terrorism charges.
The politician, who is already serving a nine-year prison term, said he could be looking at a life sentence, if charged and convicted of terrorism.
Navalny, 46, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
He initially received a 2½-year prison sentence for a parole violation. Last year, he was sentenced to a nine-year term for fraud and contempt of court. He is serving time at a maximum-security prison 150 miles east of Moscow.
Hoffmann called on Russia to ensure Navalny receives the necessary medical treatment denied him.
