Russia outlaws Human Rights Watch as 'undesirable' group

Russian authorities Friday outlawed Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable organization,” a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

The designation means the international human rights group must stop all work in Russia and opens to prosecution those who cooperate with or support the organization.

“For over three decades, Human Rights Watch's work on post-Soviet Russia has pressed the government to uphold human rights and freedoms,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Philippe Bolopion said in a statement. “Our work hasn't changed, but what is changed, dramatically, is the government's full-throttled embrace of dictatorial policies, its staggering rise in repression, and the scope of the war crimes its forces are committing in Ukraine.”