04.12.2011

Letter of support

ENEMO expresses its support to the “GOLOS” as an organization and its members and fully seconds the activities that are part of the organizations’ mission to work on the development of the democratic processes.

In the eve of the Parliamentary elections in Russia, one of the ENEMO member and founder organization was placed under outrageous pressure with aim to discredit the organization and to intimidate its members and by that to prevent the organization to exercise the elementary right in a democratic society to monitor the elections.

Namely, GOLOS web page has been under attacks in the recent period which is a way the citizens in Russia to be prevented to get information on election process and the key findings of GOLOS. Additionally, the pressure on GOLOS was marred by administrative fine, accusative media reports in terms of identifying GOLOS as organization ready to spent western money to provoke unrests, and one of the direct attacks on the organization and the democracy in Russia was the request issued by some State Duma deputies to close the organization and its office and not to have more that 3000 observers deployed on the election day.

On 2 December, Golos executive director was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport for twelve hours after refusal to check her laptop.

Nevertheless, GOLOS continued to work on achieving its mission regardless the pressure and intimidations and was ready to deploy observers on the polling stations.

Some new attacks and pressure may be directed towards GOLOS in the coming days.

Therefore, European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations - ENEMO, which unites 22 organizations from the countries of Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, considers such actions violent and oppressive for the civil society of Russia.

ENEMO also considers oppressions against public activists absolutely impermissible. This disgraceful fact once again proves that the officials in Moscow do not follow the international agreements, as well as the provisions of its Constitution.

Having on mind this fact, ENEMO expresses its support to GOLOS activists and their families and calls on the Russian authorities to cease the pressures against them.

ENEMO, in its turn, calls on the international organizations and the countries that host ENEMO members to address the Russian government with a concern over the state of human rights in Russia and a demand to immediately stop the intense pressure on the public activists.

Organizations-members of ENEMO are united on the principles of respect for the international standards in the field of freedom of associations; they also contribute to the development of democracy and human rights principles in their countries.

links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/europe/russian-court-fines-election-monitor-1000.html?_r=1

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/11/30/russia-creators-of-election-violation-map-come-under-attack/