Russia outlaws Human Rights Watch as crackdown on dissent continues

Russian authorities on Friday outlawed Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable organization,” a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense.

The designation means the international human rights group must stop all work in Russia, and opens those who cooperate with or support the organization to prosecution.

“For over three decades, Human Rights Watch’s work on post-Soviet Russia has pressed the government to uphold human rights and freedoms,” the executive director at Human Rights Watch, Philippe Bolopion, said in a statement. “Our work hasn’t changed, but what’s changed, dramatically, is the government’s full-throttled embrace of dictatorial policies, its staggering rise in repression, and the scope of the war crimes its forces are committing in Ukraine.”

The decision by the Russian prosecutor general’s office is the latest move in an unrelenting crackdown on Kremlin critics, journalists and activists, which has intensified to unprecedented levels since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a separate statement on Friday, the office said it was opening a case against Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot that would designate the group as an extremist organization.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Russia’s Supreme Court designated the Anti-Corruption Foundation set up by the late opposition activist Alexei Navalny as a terrorist group. The ruling targeted the foundation’s U.S.-registered entity, which became the focal point for the group when the original Anti-Corruption Foundation was designated an “undesirable organization” by the Russian government in 2021.

“There is no doubt that other organizations will soon be designated as ‘terrorists’ — independent media, human rights projects, and local initiatives,” the foundation said in a statement.

“This is a political strategy used by the Russian authorities: to declare anyone who interferes with their theft and endless war an enemy of the state.”

Russia’s list of “undesirable organizations” currently covers more than 275 entities, including prominent independent news outlets and rights groups. Among those are prominent news organizations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, think tanks like Chatham House, anti-corruption group Transparency International, and environmental advocacy organization WWF.

Founded in 1978, Human Rights Watch monitors and researches human rights violations in countries across the world. It has been outspoken in its opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recently published an investigation into Russian forces using drones to deliberately chase, injure and kill civilians living in Ukraine’s Kherson region.