Golos Movement denounces harassment by Russian border authorities in the run-up to Presidential Election

Golos Movement denounces harassment by Russian border authorities in the run-up to Presidential Election

The Movement for Defence of Voters' Rights Golos criticises the political surveillance of its participants since August, 2017.

In an open letter sent to President Vladimir Putin, the Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), and several other Russian federal bodies, Golos declares that since August 2017, 23 of its participants were subjected to additional checks at the border crossing for about 50 times. The last time additional control measures were massively applied on December 15-16, 2017, that is, right after the official announcement of the presidential elections on December 15.

"In the course of additional control measures, all pages of passports are being scanned systematically", the letter says. "Obviously, security services are trying to track the travel of the movement members abroad". These control procedures followed by inspection of luggage and personal belongings took up to several hours. Apparently, when a passport of a Golos participant is scanned, an information pops up stating that Golos participants are suspected of conducting terrorist activities.

Golos highlights that it is unacceptable to consider protecting the electoral rights of citizens as terrorist activities. The movement considers the above-mentioned actions of the FSB to be politically motivated and sees in them a clear abuse of office and a violation of the constitutional rights of the participants of the movement.

See the full letter here (in Russian).