Russia’s Federal Service for Telecommunications Supervision, Roskomnadzor, on Tuesday restricted access to the website of the Helnski Group, considered the oldest human rights NGO in Russia and recently liquidated by order of the Russian judiciary.
This is what can be deduced from Roskomnadzor’s own web page, a body which, however, does not provide further details about the blocking of the Helsinki Group’s portal or the reasons for it, as reported by the Russian news agency TASS.
A Moscow court ordered the liquidation of the Helsinki Group at the end of January in response to an administrative request from the Russian Ministry of Justice. The NGO’s legal team confirmed at the time that they would appeal the decision.
The government alleged in the lawsuit that the authorities detected irregularities during an inspection in November 2022, such as Helsinki Group staff carrying out activities outside Moscow, something to which they were theoretically not entitled.
The organization applied in vain for the dismissal of these complaints and, during the proceedings, vindicated its important work since its founding in 1976. For the president, Valeri Borshchev, the government’s accusations are «absurd», among other reasons because «human rights transcend territories».
The Russian political authorities, in collusion with the judiciary, have toughened the persecution of organizations considered critical in recent years, in a trend that intensified especially after the start of the military offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
