Open Dialogue Foundation “undesirable” in Russia

26 March 2024 | Author: Marcin Wyrwał

Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has included the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) on its list of “undesirable organisations” in the country. The Russian Prosecutor’s Office found that the Polish foundation poses “a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation.” “I am only surprised that it has occurred only now,” commented Chair of ODF Supervisory Board Bartosz Kramek on the decision of the Russian ministry.

Run since 2009 by Lyudmyla Kozlovska and her husband Bartosz Kramek, the Open Dialogue Foundation is the latest of 152 organisations to appear on Russia’s blacklist. The Foundation has, since its inception, been engaged in the defense of human rights across the former Soviet Union. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has deemed ODF “a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, the defence capacity of the country or the security of the State”.

“I am only surprised that this has occurred only now,” Bartosz Kramek stated in an interview with Onet. “Roskomnadzor had already censored our website in Russia in 2015 for “spreading extremist content”, which our reports on Russian aggression against Ukraine were deemed to be. The description of the activities of the volunteer battalions was then classified as promoting banderism. We resumed large-scale humanitarian aid in February 2022, and we are also intensively fighting Russia’s circumvention of Western sanctions with assistance from third countries. We have made it into the venerable group, and we take it as a commitment to double our efforts.”

“For many years of PiS rule, we were actually considered an enemy organisation by the Polish authorities, and I became a threat to state security on the basis of a secret opinion issued by the Internal Security Agency and an official government decision. This changed after the political breakthrough at the end of last year. Apparently, nature abhors a vacuum,” added ODF President Lyudmyla Kozlovska.

Since 14 February, the date ODF was listed as undesirable, it has been officially banned from operating in the Russian Federation. Participation in such an organisation is punishable in Russia by an administrative fine of 15,000 rubles (about PLN 650), and repeated participation in such an organisation carries a prison sentence of up to four years.

The status of undesirable organisations has existed in Russian law since 2015, and since 2017 the websites of such organisations can be blocked. The Prosecutor General’s Office, which grants such status to organisations in consultation with the Ministry of Justice, is not required to publicly explain the reasons for its decision.

In addition to ODF, the list includes two more “Polish” organisations founded by Russians in Poland. Among other things, the WOT Foundation is engaged in promoting democratic values and providing information on the state of human rights in Russia. The Congress of People’s Deputies, on the other hand, was founded by former deputies Ilya Ponomarev and Gennady Gudkov, as well as lawyer Mark Feigin — all three are considered “foreign agents” in Russia. The two organisations were founded in Poland by Russians. ODF is the first Polish organisation on the list run by Poles.

Source: onet.pl

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