Open Dialogue Foundation an enemy in Russia. Management under threat of long-term imprisonment

26 March 2024 | Author: Damian Świderski

The Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF), founded in Poland, was on Monday added to the list of organisations that are undesirable in Russia. The information was provided by the Russian Ministry of Justice. The Foundation, which has been promoting human rights and democracy in the post-Soviet territories for 15 years, commented on the situation: the Russians are threatening its management with years in prison.

Russians regard ODF as an enemy that poses a “political threat”

The Open Dialogue Foundation has been included by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office on the list of undesirable organisations in Russia. The Prosecutor’s Office thus deemed the Foundation a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation. The Open Dialogue Foundation, founded in 2009, provides assistance in the post-Soviet area. The Russian Prosecutor’s Office decided to include the Foundation on the list because ODF, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, has been trying to help defenders by sending humanitarian aid. One of its leaders, Marcin Mycielski, reported that over a two-year period, ODF has provided Ukraine with such aid worth PLN 40 million.

The managers potentially face fifteen years in prison. What have they done?

Mycielski, as well as the other chiefs of the Foundation Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek, could face up to 15 years in prison. All because such inclusion on the list of undesirable organisations means a ban on conducting any activity in Russia, with fines as well as imprisonment for violating the ban.

“This is an unusual form of recognition for our activities,” commented the organisation itself.

Inclusion on such a list is possible in Putin’s country thanks to a law adopted in May 2015. From that time on, the Russian authorities have been allowed to recognise foreign and international NGOs, as well as various companies, as undesirable on Russian territory because they “pose 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”.

Source: i.pl

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