The Movement for Defence of Voters' Rights "Golos", formerly GOLOS Association is a Russian organisation established in 2000 to protect the electoral rights of citizens and to foster civil society. As of 2008, the organisation covers 40 Russian regions. It is the only election watchdog active in Russia that is independent of the Russian government.
Founding
GOLOS was founded as an association of non-profit organizations in 2000 to support civil monitoring of elections.
Activities
Since 2002 GOLOS has monitored elections and referendums of all levels. The Telegraph describes GOLOS as being "one of the few organisations able to catalogue and publicise attempts at fraud and intimidation". The group publishes a newspaper called Grazhdansky Golos.
During the 2011 Russian legislative election, 2,000 monitors coordinated by GOLOS took part in election observation. GOLOS set up an interactive map of violations to which users could submit reports, video evidence, audio recordings and photographs. It attracted over 4,500 reports alleging illegal campaign tactics, including stories of employers threatening workers with pay cuts and local officials ordering business leaders to pressure subordinates. Citing the map, Russian prosecutors charged GOLOS with publishing election data during the five days before voting. It also accused Golos of "dissemination of rumors under the guise of trustworthy reports, with the goal of defaming a party as well as its individual members.” Golos was subsequently fined for these alleged breaches. During the election, the website was subjected to Denial-of-service attacks. The state-owned channel NTV showed reports accusing GOLOS Association of disrupting the elections paid for by the United States.
2012 "foreign agent" registration and prosecution
In early 2012, Russia introduced legislation which required NGOs receiving foreign donations to present themselves as "foreign agents" in outward communication. The same year, GOLOS received the Andrei Sakharov Freedom Award of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. While both Golos and the Helsinki Committee stated that Golos had not accepted the prize money, Russia's Justice Ministry in April 2013 used it as a reason to qualify Golos as the first "foreign agent" under the new legislation. After GOLOS refused to register as such, it was suspended in June 2013 for six months. After its suspension in 2013, GOLOS reorganized as civil movement "Golos" to continue its work. On 7 July 2015, Russian police raided the offices and the homes of several Golos employees and confiscated equipment including computers. Police linked the raids to a tax investigation against the head of the group's branch in Samara. The police raid was accompanied by a TV crew from state-controlled NTV. In February 2016, the Justice Ministry asked Moscow's Basmanny District Court to ban GOLOS, citing a failure to present proper documentation. In July 2016, a court ordered the liquidation of Golos within six months due to "serious irremediable breaches of law”. Golos is appealing the decision.
Structure
Golos is a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations. It is also a member of the European Platform for Democratic Elections an association of election monitors in Eastern Europe. After its suspension in 2013, Golos reorganized as a civil movement. It consists of independent organizations such as Golos-Povolzhye and Golos-Ural. After an appeal by the Presidential Human Rights Council, regional organization of Golos received funds from Russia's presidential administration. In April 2013, the head of Golos Grigory Melkonyants announced that it suspended any foreign funding. In addition to the presidential grants, projects of Golos in the past have received donations from the European Commission, USAID as well as NED.
Support from Memorial
On November 30, 2011 the board of the "Memorial International Society" supported GOLOS against attacks from pro-Kremlin media:
