The leader of the pro-democracy organization Open Russia has been removed from a plane in Saint Petersburg. Andrej Pivovarov’s plane was already taxiing and was about to take off when it was stopped after all, reported via the Twitter account van Pivovarov.
Pivovarov says that he was then plucked from the plane. He would be suspected of leading an ‘undesirable’ organization. Pivovarov’s team, which now manages his account, says he has since been questioned. If convicted, he could face years in prison.
Last week, Pivovarov announced that Open Russia is ceasing operations in the country to protect members from prosecution. In the run-up to the September elections, pressure on opposition groups has increased. Dozens of organizations have been designated as ‘undesirable’. In 2015, membership of such organizations became a criminal offence.
Pivovarov called the de facto decision to cancel Open Russia “terribly sad”, adding that on a personal level he would continue to try to bring about political change. Open Russia was funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch who spent ten years in prison in Russia and then fled abroad to support the Russian opposition.
‘Foreign agent’
Open Russia was active in Russia for more than twenty years and campaigned, among other things, against a constitutional amendment that would allow President Putin to remain in power until 2036.
Russia says the West is trying to undermine the country through such organizations. With this argumentation, organizations that are financed from abroad are obliged to register as a ‘foreign agent’.
The main Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, is in prison. He got in February 2.5 years in prison for an old fraud case. In that case he was given a suspended sentence; because he fled to Germany after being poisoned, he would not have complied with a reporting obligation.
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