Five days ago, it was announced that Russia’s leading independent election-monitoring group, Golos (“Voice”), had been forced to shut down its operations due to continued threats from the Putin administration.

Golos’ co-chair, Grigory Melkonyants, had been sentenced in May to five years in prison on charges of carrying on activities for an officially-designated “undesirable” organization, the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) . . . deemed “undesirable” because its investigations revealed election violations and irregularities the Kremlin obviously did not want exposed.

The people then remaining at Golos issued a statement upon closing their doors:

“The verdict leaves us no choice. This is the end of a story which, according to investigators and the court, lasted 25 years. The arrest and imprisonment of our friend and colleague had one goal: to make Golos fall silent.” [RFE/RL, July 8, 2025.]

And so it has. But Grigory Melkonyants’ name will not fall silent; it will be called out each week along with the others on our list of political hostages being held in Putin’s prisons . . . while their countries, their families and their colleagues continue to fight for their release.

So, once again, here they are:

Prisoners of War:

The People of Ukraine
The Azov 12

Political Prisoners:

The Azerbaijan 7:
— Farid Mehralizada
— Ulvi Hasanli
— Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
— Mahammad Kekalov
— Hafiz Babali
— Nargiz Absalamova
— Elnara Gasimova

In Russia, except as otherwise indicated:

David Barnes
Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus)
Gordon Black
Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus)
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman
Stephen James Hubbard
Sergey Karelin
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus)
Michael Travis Leake
Aleksei Liptser
Ihar Losik (in Belarus)
Mikita Losik (in Belarus)
Daniel Martindale
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika Novak
Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Eugene Spector
Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland
Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)

. . . and any others I may have overlooked.

One more time.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendohchka
7/13/25