The decision of the Russian prosecutor’s office, announced in an online statement, is the latest decision to relentlessly suppress the Kremlin critics, journalists and activists, who have intensified it to unprecedented levels after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The name means that the international human rights organization must cease any work in Russia and will cause those who cooperate with or support it to prosecute, including if someone has shared Amnesty International’s report on social media.
Amnesty International did not immediately comment on the move.
Russia’s list of “bad organizations” currently covers 223 entities, including well-known independent news media and rights organizations. These include well-known news organizations such as Radio Europe/Radio Free Radio or Russian independent export Medusa, think tanks such as Chatham House, Anti-Corruption Group Transparency International Transparency International and Russian Open Russia, an opposition group founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a tycoon in exile.
After publicizing that Russia was declared bad in 2021 and disbanded to protect its members, its leader Andrei Pivovarov was arrested and convicted of conducting bad organised activities. He has been sentenced to four years in prison since the Soviet era and was released in 2024 in the largest prisoner exchange in the West. Amnesty International was launched in 1961. The group documents and reports global human rights violations and serves to release imprisonment that is considered unjust. It published reports on Russia’s war in Ukraine, accusing Moscow of crimes against humanity and opposing the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissidents who have swept thousands of people in recent years. Amnesty International’s latest remarks about Russia include condemning the prison sentence of Grigory Melkonys, a prominent election supervisor, to “a strong motivation for peace activism.”
Last week, this also opposed a series of arrests in Russia for a series of Russian publishing professionals, allegedly suspected of “LGBTQ+ publicity” in the book. “This shameless use of literary works is ridiculous,” said Natalia Zviagina, director of Russia at Amnesty International Russia.
In a statement, the Attorney General’s Office accused the group of “Russia phobia projects” and activities aimed at “political and economic isolation” in Russia.
