Last week the Russian news agency RBK reported that police officers and prosecutors had raided the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s leading human rights groups “For Human Rights“.

On Friday 21 June, Igor Bakirov, one of the activists from “For Human Rights”, posted on his Facebook page that the police had stormed their offices, accompanied by reporters from the state-owned television channel NTV:

“Everyone, come to the office of FHR, we are being raided here… NTV is also here. Prosecutors are illegally demanding that we leave the office with our possessions. We fear we will be detained.”

Later on, Bakirov added that the police broke the locks on the doors of the office and replaced them with their own. “We will not give up and are not going anywhere” – promised the human rights’ activist.

At the same time, the leader of the movement, Lev Ponomaryov, said: “At this moment the raid is continuing. All the locks have been changed and over 10 police officers are inside the office. Almost all of the employees of the office have been forcefully removed. The rest can only go to the toilets with permission, as it is necessary to open the locks, which have already been changed“. Ponomaryov urged supporters to spread the information about what was happening to others.

Below is a video of Ponomaryov commenting on the event.

On Saturday 22 June, the following day, Associated Press reported that the 72 year old Ponomaryov had been dragged out of the building and severely beaten when security forces stormed the “For Human Rights” office at around 2 o’clock in the morning.

Ponomaryov returned to the street outside the office later that afternoon to speak with supporters with what appeared to be a bruise under his left eye.

On the same day, Amnesty International confirmed it had sent a representative to assess the situation at Ponomaryov’s office, with an Amnesty spokesman claiming:

“In Russia, we have witnessed how authorities are using every trick in the box to stop human rights activists criticizing their policies. The attempt to evict “For Human Rights” from publicly owned offices seems to be yet another attempt to block their important human rights work.”

Last week the Russian organisation “For the Rights of Prisoners” had announced that “For Human Rights” was planning a solidarity protest in support of Russia’s political prisoners to mark the 50th birthday of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.  The protest had been approved by the Moscow Mayor’s office.

There can be no doubt that the raid on the “For Human Rights” offices represents the seriousness of the crackdown by President Putin on human rights groups in Russia.  In early 2012, the Russian Duma passed a law requiring NGOs to register as “foreign agents” if they obtained international funding. In July 2012, Ponomaryov announced that his organization would refuse to comply with it:

“We are declaring a campaign of civil disobedience to laws that have been passed in violation of the Russian Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, and other conventions that Russia has signed. We will never be [foreign] agents and will not obey this law. We are agents of Russian citizens. We will continue to receive foreign grants and will speak about this openly.”