Russia Adds OVD-Info and 35 Memorial-Linked Groups to 'Terrorists and Extremists' List

Russia has added OVD-Info, one of the country’s best-known rights-monitoring and legal-aid projects, to the federal list of “terrorists and extremists,” a designation that can expose people involved with the group to criminal prosecution, short-term detention, and financial restrictions.

Russia’s financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, updated the list on June 4 and included OVD-Info in a broader sweep of 36 organizations. Human Rights Watch said the same update added OVD-Info “along with 35 other Russian organizations,” many of them linked to Memorial, one of Russia’s most prominent human rights networks. The move appears to follow an April 9 ruling by the Russian Supreme Court that declared the “International Public Movement Memorial” extremist and banned its activities. In a press release that day, the court said Memorial’s work had an “anti-Russian character” and declared the movement and its structural subdivisions extremist.

OVD-Info was founded in 2011 after a crackdown on mass protests. It became widely known for tracking detentions, running a 24/7 hotline for people reporting abuses, and providing legal help in cases involving freedom of assembly and expression. The project, which operates without a legal entity, has also helped more than 2,300 applicants win cases at the European Court of Human Rights. Before Memorial Human Rights Centre was liquidated in 2021, OVD-Info was one of its key partners.

The legal consequences of the designation are severe. Human Rights Watch said that under Russian law, participating in or financing an extremist organization can carry up to 12 years in prison. Displaying an extremist organization’s symbols can bring up to 15 days’ detention for a first offense and up to four years in prison for a repeat offense. Authorities can also place suspected participants on a national list of extremists and freeze their bank accounts.

The June 4 listing places new pressure on a group that has served as one of the main public sources of information on politically sensitive arrests and prosecutions in Russia. OVD-Info said it would continue operating despite the designation.

“By declaring our work ‘extremism,’ they are not outlawing a project, but society’s very ability to document detentions, help those facing persecution, and call repression by its name,” Daniil Beilinson, an OVD-Info co-founder, told Human Rights Watch. “The state that rewrites the past cannot tolerate evidence of the present, and so it seeks to ban both at once. But you can’t ban people from knowing it. We will not shut down, and we will not stop our work.”

Hugh Williamson, Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia director, said the designation fit a broader pattern. “Russian authorities are increasingly targeting human rights groups with sham ‘extremism’ labels,” he said. “The government should cherish the work these groups do, not demonize it.”

Human Rights Watch said the June 4 additions also included independent Memorial-affiliated regional groups, organizations outside Russia using the Memorial brand, Memorial’s political prisoners project, and the Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre. The group also said the Supreme Court case against Memorial was handled in one closed hearing, that the file was classified “top secret,” and that Memorial’s lawyers were not allowed to participate.

Memorial has long been one of Russia’s best-known civil society groups and received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for documenting war crimes, human rights abuses and abuses of power. The addition of OVD-Info and other Memorial-linked groups to the extremists list extends pressure on a network that has played a central role in documenting state abuses inside Russia.