Falling fig leaves

“There is something wrong with this beehive”, says the Russian Winnie the Pooh when looking into a “2016 elections” ballot box. (Image: Sergey Elkin for RFE)

As the Disinformation Digest has been reporting, the corridor open for independent voices becomes increasingly narrow in Russia ahead of the 18 September parliamentary elections.

Levada forced to immediately suspend its work
After the media attack on the election observation NGO Golos, on Monday it was the turn of Russia’s leading independent polling institution: the Levada Centre was declared a ’foreign agent’.

This step not only stigmatizes the internationally acknowledged institution as treacherous, but also makes operations de facto impossible thanks to the overwhelming documentation demands imposed by the law. Levada’s managing director, Lev Gudkov, told Kommersant on Tuesday that the centre has been forced to immediately suspend its work. Both the EU and the US reacted with statements.

Wednesday saw an unannounced inspection of Memorial, a leading Russian human rights NGO, with the aim of looking into its international affiliations and a possible inclusion in the register of “foreign agents”, the NGO said in a statement.

The pending case was described in a Facebook post by Memorial leader Sergei Parkhomenko under the headline THIRTY ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY – a reference to the number of pages Memorial was requested to submit by the authorities.

Columnist Kirill Rogov observed on Facebook: “Given that the Levada is now listed as a foreign agent, there can be no doubt about the outcome of the “Memorial” investigation. We can conclude that we are witnessing a new wave of assaults on independent organizations and civil society in Russia.

[…] Both the Levada Center and Memorial are Russian NGOs that have achieved international fame. Are there now any forces left at all with the ability to speak up, convene, coordinate and oppose this crusade against what is certainly a national treasure of Russia – the real Russia, not the Russia that is based on stolen oil? Even in the Soviet times, gloomy and gray artists, scientists, people with a name would from time to time speak out against the destruction of the nation’s treasures.”