Moscow City Court keeps Grigory Melkonyants in detention centre

Court has rejected an appeal against the human rights defender's arrest.

Grigory Melkonyants is accused of organising the activities of a foreign or international non-governmental organisation that has been declared undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation (part 3 of Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). On 18 August, the Basmanny Court of Moscow chose a measure of restraint in the form of arrest until 17 October 2023.

According to Melkonyants' lawyer Mikhail Biryukov, the case contains 250 pages of documents that supposedly examine the “Golos” website, but instead it contains screenshots from the website of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organisations (ENEMO).

The “Golos” movement made a public statement immediately after ENEMO was declared an undesirable organisation that it had no interaction with the organisation and has not had any since. ENEMO itself has never organised any events in Russia or observed any Russian elections.

In addition, on 17 August 2023, a series of searches took place at the homes of activists associated with “Golos”. Their equipment, passports and bank cards were confiscated.