Russia's Ministry of Justice excluded 15 organizations from the register of branches and representative offices of international organizations and foreign non-profit NGOs, including the Carnegie Foundation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

They were expelled "in connection with the revealed violations of the current legislation," the department's website reported .

In particular, the Russian offices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA), Amnesty International Limited (Amnesty International, UK, and the Human Rights Watch Corporation (USA) office) are excluded.

The branch of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (Germany) in Russia, the branch of the registered union Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Germany) in Russia and its representative office in St. Petersburg, the representative office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.F. " (Germany) in Russia and its capital branch.

Also, the Russian branch of the Hanns Seidel Foundation (Germany), the branch of the registered association Rosa Luxembourg Foundation - Analysis of Social Development and Civic Education (Germany), the branch of the Heinrich Böll Foundation (Germany), the representative office of the German Research Community in Russia .

The list is completed by the Russian offices of the Aga Khan Foundation (Switzerland), the Vspulnota Polska Association and the Institute for International Education, Inc. (USA).

KEY BACKGROUND
The move comes as international organizations and leaders— including President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen— condemn a Russian missile strike at a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Friday that left at least 50 dead as well as a massacre in a northwest suburb of Kyiv last week where the bodies of 410 civilians were discovered after Russian troops withdrew.

Both Amnesty International, an international nonprofit organization focused on human rights, as well as Human Rights Watch, have accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Since the start of the war, Russia has ramped up efforts to clamp down on free speech in the country, including with a move last month to block access to major foreign news outlets and to punish anyone spreading “false information” about the war with up to 15 years in prison.

Authorities close down Amnesty International's Moscow office

“Amnesty’s closing down in Russia is only the latest in a long list of organizations that have been punished for defending human rights and speaking the truth to the Russian authorities.

"In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked or forced to self-censor and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated, you must be doing something right if the Kremlin tries to shut you up.

“The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by closing down our office in Moscow they will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations.

"We continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russia’s egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad.

“We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience unjustly detained for standing up for human rights. We will continue to defend independent journalism’s ability to report actual facts, free of the Russian government’s intervention.

"We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine or Syria, face justice. Put simply, we will never give up.”

Russia’s Justice Ministry has deregistered @hrw, after 30 years in #Russia.

The ministry's statement referred vaguely to Russian legislation, but there is little doubt the move was in response to our reporting on the war in #Ukraine.

Our deregistration came just days after an appeals court upheld the liquidation of Russia’s human rights giant, Memorial.

The Russian government had already made it abundantly clear that it has no use for any facts regarding the protection of civilians in #Ukraine.

This is just one small further proof of that.

HRW has been working on Russia since the Soviet era, when it was a closed totalitarian state. We found ways of documenting human rights abuses then, and we will do so in the future.

We will continue to work on Russia, and we will continue to press for the protection of civilians in Russia's war in #Ukraine.

It is our great privilege to work with Russia’s vibrant and courageous activists on so many issues, to work for the freedom of people unjustly imprisoned - like Alexei Navalny - and to call out the government's assault on civil society.

As we did this, we called on Russia to return to the standards it is obligated to uphold under the UN human rights system. And we will continue to do this.

Forcing us to close our office will not change our determination to call out #Russia’s turn to authoritarianism.

We will keep working for the day that the Russian government upholds the rights of everyone.

The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by closing down our office in Moscow they will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations.

NwaAmaikpe:




Where's the Senate when you need them,
Isn't this an abuse of office?

Why will you close down Amnesty's office because their security officer stopped Yusuf from riding his power bike on top of the 2nd Niger Bridge so he will not crash it because of the petrol that spilled on the road when those two black marketers were fighting since the taller one refused to give the shorter one part of Bobrisky's wig that fell off from his head when his Keke was rushing to the airport because the highway was blocked by Fulani herdsmen who were taking all their cows from Funta Jalon to Oba for Obi Cubana's mother's burial.

Please count me out of Ukraine and Russia matter. My problem is that old kpekus is now hard to find in Worcester.