The Moscow office of rights group Amnesty International has been sealed off by municipal officials soon after it urged the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Ildar Dadin, a prisoner of conscience, and investigate his allegations of torture.
“Ildar Dadin’s allegations of beatings, humiliation and rape threats are shocking, but unfortunately they are just the latest in a string of credible reports indicating that torture and other ill treatment are being widely used in the Russian penal system with impunity, with the aim of silencing any form of dissent,” said Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International Russia.
Official seals had been placed on the entrances to the office, the locks had been changed and power to the office had been cut off. He said no prior warning was given.
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The seals warns that the facility is the property of Moscow, and the door can not be opened, Amnesty’s press officer Alexander Artemyev told TV station Rain.
Amnesty International’s office in Moscow has been located in the 19th-century mansion for 20 years. A representative of the Moscow state property department, from which Amnesty rents the office, said they had no immediate comment. According to Artemyev, the organization has always paid the rent on time.
Over the recent years human rights watchdogs that receive foreign funding and take a critical look of the Russian leadership have been at the gunpoint of the Kremlin. Some groups have even been tarred as ‘foreign agents’.
Belsat.eu
