Russian police detain a protester during a rally in Moscow in 2022, against the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine. Russia has designated Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable foreign organization,” the nation’s Ministry of Justice announced Friday. File Photo by Maxim Shipenkov/EPA
Nov. 28 (UPI) — Russia has designated Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable foreign organization,” the nation’s Ministry of Justice announced Friday.
This decision means the organization, which was founded in 1978, is banned from operating in Russia. HRW is in 78 nations.
“Designating rights groups undesirable is brazen and cynical,” Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release. “It only redoubles our determination to document the Russian authorities’ human rights violations and war crimes, and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”
HRW has documented human rights violations in Russia and the military committing war crimes in Ukraine.
“For over three decades, Human Rights Watch’s work on post-Soviet Russia has pressed the government to uphold human rights and freedoms,” Bolopion said. “Our work hasn’t changed, but what’s 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.”
In 2015, Russia introduced the “undesirable” law to silence independent media, opposition groups and foreign organizations.
Russian authorities have designated at least 280 organizations as “undesirable,” including the Moscow Times. Courts have issued administrative and criminal sentences, including in their absence, against several hundred people, HRW said.
“Undesirable” organizations, as determined by the Prosecutor’s Office, undermine Russia’s security, defense or constitutional order.
The Prosecutor General’s Office banned HRW on Nov. 10.
Those who continue to engage with these organizations, in Russia or abroad, may face administrative and criminal penalties, including a maximum six-year prison sentence. The authorities interpret “engagement” widely and arbitrarily, HRW said.
The organization leaders risk up to six years, according to Russian law.
In 2021, Andrei Pivovarov, a political activist, was sentenced to four years in prison for social media posts, which the authorities said promoted Open Russia, a political opposition movement designated “undesirable.” Russian authorities released and expelled him from the country in 2024 as part of a prisoner exchange with Western nations.
In May 2025, a Moscow court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants, a prominent Russian rights defender and election monitor, to five years in prison after authorities wrongly equated the Russian election monitoring group Golos with the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, which were designated “undesirable” in 2021.
After the initial full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, HRW was among several international organizations and non-government organizations with offices shut down in Moscow.
HRW had operated in Russia since 1992 with the breakup of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, HRW began working there in 1978.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a rapporteur for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe, have criticized the legislation.