MOSCOW -- A new charge has been brought against jailed Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza stemming from his role in organizing an event to support political prisoners in Russia.
Kara-Murza's lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, said on August 4 that his client had been charged with carrying out activities of an undesirable organization. The noted Kremlin-critic was already in jail after he was arrested in April for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian Army's activities in Ukraine.
According to Prokhorov, Kara-Murza is accused of holding a conference in Moscow in October to support political prisoners in Russia that was sponsored by the foreign-based Free Russia Foundation. That group has been deemed "undesirable" in the country.
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 which received funding from foreign sources -- mainly from Europe and the United States.
Russian lawmakers have since dramatically widened the scope of the law, including barring Russian nationals and organizations anywhere in the world from taking part in activities of such "undesirable" groups.
Russia's Investigative Committee has been conducting an initial probe into allegations that Kara-Murza distributed false information about the army while speaking to lawmakers in the U.S. state of Arizona.
Kara-Murza has rejected the charge, calling it politically motivated.
His arrest came amid a mounting crackdown by Russian authorities on opposition figures and any dissent to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which Moscow launched against its neighbor on February 24.
In early March, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations.
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian Army that leads to "serious consequences" is 15 years in prison.
It also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.
SEE ALSO: 'Intentional Poisoning': New FBI Records, New Clues To Kremlin Critic's Sudden IllnessesA close associate of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Kara-Murza is best known for falling 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."
U.S. government laboratories also conducted extensive tests on the samples, but documents released by the Justice Department suggest they were unable to reach a conclusive finding.