Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Russia's "spurious" new charge against opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza is "a thinly veiled threat to the Russian public not to engage in dissent," as authorities there accelerate their long-running clampdown amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Kara-Murza's lawyer announced last week that his client had been charged with carrying out activities of an "undesirable" organization.
HRW demanded in an August 8 statement that Russian officials drop all charges against Kara-Murza and repeal the "abusive" law that underpins the latest accusation.
"It is now a pattern for the Kremlin to throw its critics behind bars on spurious charges and then continue to add new bogus charges against them to keep them there," HRW quoted its Europe and Central Asia director, Hugh Williamson, as saying. "The new charge against Kara-Murza is a blatant attempt to instill more fear among Russia’s civil society and deter it from mobilizing against the Kremlin and its war against Ukraine."
A longtime Kremlin-critic who has survived at least two apparent poisonings, Kara-Murza was already in jail after he was arrested in April for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian Army's activities in Ukraine.
On August 9, a Moscow court extended his detention until October 12, Interfax reported quoting the court's press service, on a charge of deliberately disseminating false information in a speech on March 15 to Arizona lawmakers.
According to his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, Kara-Murza is now charged with holding a Moscow conference in October to support Russian political prisoners that was sponsored by the foreign-based Free Russia Foundation. That group has been recognized as "undesirable" in the country.
The new charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison, according to HRW.
"The fake charges against Kara-Murza are purely politically motivated, and he should be immediately and unconditionally released, as should the many other Russians prosecuted on outrageous 'fake news,' 'undesirable,' and similar charges," Williamson said. "The Russian authorities need to stop misusing and manipulating the justice system in their desperate efforts to stomp out dissent and opposition."
The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in 2015, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that squeezed many nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that received funding from foreign sources -- mainly from Europe and the United States.
Russian lawmakers have since dramatically widened the scope of the law, including to bar Russian nationals and organizations anywhere in the world from taking part in activities of such "undesirable" groups.
A close associate of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Kara-Murza fell deathly ill on two separate occasions in Moscow -- in 2015 and 2017-- with symptoms consistent with poisoning.
Tissue samples smuggled out of Russia by his relatives were turned over to the FBI, which investigated his case as one of "intentional poisoning."
