Russia convicts a prominent election monitoring activist and sentences him to 5 years in prison

A court in Moscow on Wednesday convicted one of the leaders of a prominent independent election monitoring group on charges of organizing the work of an ''undesirable'' organization and sentenced him to five years in prison.

Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia's leading election watchdog Golos, has rejected the charges as politically motivated. The case against him is part of the monthslong crackdown on Kremlin critics and rights activists that the government ratcheted up after invading Ukraine in 2022.

After a judge of the Basmanny District Court delivered the verdict, Melkonyants, 44, told several dozen supporters and journalists from the glass defendant's cage: ''Don't worry, I'm not despairing. You shouldn't despair either!''

Golos has monitored for and exposed violations in every major election in Russia since it was founded in 2000. Over the years, it has faced mounting pressure from the authorities.

In 2013, the group was designated as a ''foreign agent'' — a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations. Three years later, it was liquidated as a non-governmental organization by Russia's Justice Ministry.

Golos has continued to operate without registering as an NGO, exposing violations in various elections, and in 2021 it was added to a new registry of ''foreign agents,'' created by the Justice Ministry for groups that are not registered as a legal entity in Russia.

It has not been designated as ''undesirable'' — a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense. But when it was an NGO, it was a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, a group that was declared ''undesirable'' in Russia in 2021, and the charges against Melkonyants stemmed from that.

The defense argued that when ENEMO was outlawed in Russia, Golos wasn't a member, and Melkonyants had nothing to do with it.

Melkonyants, a renowned election expert and lawyer by training, was arrested in August 2023 and has been in custody ever since.

Ella Pamfilova, chair of Russia's Central Election Commission, the country's main election authority, spoke out in his support at the time, telling Russian business daily Vedomosti about the case: ''I would really like to hope that they will handle this objectively. Because his criticism, often professional, helped us a lot sometimes.''

Independent journalists, critics, activists and opposition figures in Russia have come under increasing pressure from the government in recent years that intensified significantly amid the war in Ukraine.

Multiple independent news outlets and rights groups have been shut down, labeled as ''foreign agents'' or outlawed as ''undesirable.'' Hundreds of activists and critics of the Kremlin have faced criminal charges.

Melkonyants' defense team said after the verdict that they will appeal. Lawyer Mikhail Biryukov told reporters that ''there is no evidence" in the case that he and others on the defense team consider ''politically motivated, pretentious.''

"We will fight for Grigory's freedom, because an illegal, unjust verdict should not exist. It should not stand (in the appeal proceedings). We all hope that the law will prevail,'' Biryukov said.

Memorial, Russia's prominent human rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, has designated Melkonyants as a political prisoner.