Amnesty International Thrown Out of Moscow Office

Last Wednesday, Amnesty International, a human rights campaign group has been evicted from its Moscow Office.

According to the Amnesty Staff’s, they found that the office door’s lock has been changed. Moreover, power has been shut down and a notice from the city government has been placed on the front door.

A statement released by Moscow City Government, from whom Amnesty rented the office said that the group violated the rental agreement and failed to pay on the agreed time. However, Amnesty said they were up to date with payments and have documents to support it.

“The eviction may be part of an official crackdown on civil society groups that criticize the Kremlin, but he said there were other possible explanations.” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe director said.

The Moscow City Government answered, that they sent numerous warning notices about the said payment delays and because of this terms violation, the Amnesty Contract Lease has been voided.

“This complaint was ignored by the unscrupulous tenant,” Moscow City Government said.

“In this connection, the premises were closed and sealed off,” the statement said.
Amnesty group responded back saying that they have not received any notices from the government. They  also said they have documents to prove that they are paid up to October.

Amnesty’s Dalhuisen said: “This bizarre claim is simply not true.”

Amnesty Civil Society Issues

In a phone Interview, Dalhuisen said, “As an organization, along with others, that has criticized the Russian authorities, it is possible this fits into the context of the squeeze on civil society,”

“It is equally possible, however, that this is a genuine administrative mix-up, or that other interests are at play within the municipality. At this stage, I do not want to speculate until we have had the opportunity to try to resolve this with the municipal authorities.”

Meanwhile, Dmitry Peskov Kremlin spokesperson said that he is not aware of the issues going on with Amnesty’s Office.

John Kirby, U.S State Department Spokesman said, “He had seen reports about the eviction, and “obviously we’re concerned about it.”

Washington is now investigating the issue and we’ll see how it goes, He added.

Amnesty International was founded in London. The group castigated Russian authorities and its allies for violating humanitarian laws. This was due to Russia’s airstrikes in the Syrian City of Aleppo that killed hundreds of people. Moscow rebuffed the accusations.

President Putin’s administration accused some civil rights groups as being funded by some western countries to criticize the Kremlin. These civil rights groups are also responsible for provoking revolution to unseat pro-Russian leaders in several ex-Soviet states.

Part of the Kremlin’s move was to suppress these western funded groups. They have specified some non-government organizations as ‘foreign agents,’ which makes them subject to intense investigation from the authorities.

The post Amnesty International Thrown Out of Moscow Office appeared first on Newsline.