Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n human rights media project aimed at combating political persecution. Its main focus is freedom of assembly. OVD-Info is one of Russia’s largest human rights NGOs.
History
OVD-Info was founded in December 2011 by Moscow journalist Grigory Okhotin and programmer Daniil Beilinson. They witnessed mass arrests of participants in the pro-democracy rally on December 5, 2011. Okhotin and Beilinson then posted the total number of detainees and their names on Facebook. The post went viral, and seeing the demand for their work, by December 10, on the eve of the rally on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, Okhotin and Beilinson launched the OVD-Info website.
The name of the project comes from the abbreviation Department of Internal Affairs (), which is what police departments are often called in Russia. "OVD-Info" thus means "information about the police".
Since 1 February 2013, the main partner of the project is the Nobel-winning
Memorial
A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...
Human Rights Center. In 2013, the demanded that Memorial register as a
foreign agent
A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign principal while located in another host country, generally outside the Diplomatic immunity, protections offered to those working in their official capacity fo ...
, since it receives funding from abroad to support OVD-Info, which was regarded by the prosecutor's office as partisan. According to the prosecutor's office, some of OVD-Info's data on political persecutions is not objective. OVD-Info says that it is not partisan.
On 29 September 2021 the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation designated OVD-Info as a "
foreign agent
A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign principal while located in another host country, generally outside the Diplomatic immunity, protections offered to those working in their official capacity fo ...
". The decision was criticised as politically motivated and intended to stifle dissent.
On 25 December 2021 the
(Roskomnadzor) blocked the website of OVD-Info after a court ruling. A representative for OVD-Info said that they had not received any notifications from the government and the reason for the blocking was unknown to them.
After the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, OVD-Info expanded its mandate to help anti-war protesters. It extensively covered non-violent anti-war resistance in Russia and provided legal aid to anti-war activists.
Services
Monitoring
OVD-Info monitors politically motivated persecutions and cases of abuse of authority by Russian police. OVD-Info publishes information in the form of digests and stories told by the victims themselves.
Legal aid
The project provides legal aid in the form of consultations and a 24/7
hotline
A hotline is a Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point information transfer, communications Data link, link in which a telephone call, call is automatically directed to the preselected destination without any additional action by t ...
(through the hotline the project receives most of the information, which it then publishes in its bulletins on the website), lawyer visits to custody, legal defense in courts (up to filing complaints to
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...
).
Newsletters
OVD-Info published a weekly English-language newsletter that monitors and explains Russia’s crackdown on human rights as well as activists’ struggles. OVD-Info’s data division publishes a newsletter specifically geared towards experts.
Informing
The project monitors cases of violence against Russia’s political prisoners. The website also maintains a mailing list with reports on political persecution in Russia, along with an English-languag newsletter
OVD-Info publishes lists of detainees. In 2018, the project assisted 660 people in police departments, about 200 people in administrative and 32 in criminal cases.
The project covered many Russian protests. For example, OVD-Info published detailed statistics on arrests at anti-corruption protests in March 2017, at protests against raising the retirement age in 2018. In June 2019, the project played a significant role in drawing public attention to the case of journalist Ivan Golunov. At the same time, the project itself managed to become more widely known — on June 12, 2019, OVD-Info received an average monthly amount of donations in one day. In 2021 OVD-Info covered the crackdown on the pro- Navalny protests, later releasing a film about it. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they have been covering the ongoing crackdowns on the Russian anti-war movement.
Research
OVD-Info collaborates with media, academia and think tanks, providing data and expertise. Some of the media that used OVD-Info data are the New York Times, Al Jazeera, the Guardian and others. The project publishes reports on Russian authorities’ human rights violations. In 2018—2019, reports were published on the topic of bans of rallies in Russian cities.
Functioning and financing
As of June 2023, OVD-Info leads roughly 7000
volunteers
Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergenc ...
and employs an undisclosed number of staff. OVD-Info provides assistance to those who find themselves under administrative or criminal prosecution for expressing their political position. The project is aimed at the development of
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.
Since 2013 till 2022 the Nobel-winning Memorial Human Rights Center has acted as an infrastructural partner of OVD-Info. From 2015 to the present day, the project has been actively developing their of grassroots donations base. Russian banks — Tinkoff,
Alfa-Bank
Alfa-Bank JSC () is the largest of the private banks in Russia. It was founded in 1990 by Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, who remains the controlling owner. Headquartered in Moscow, it operates in seven countries, providing financial servi ...
and — refused processing donations to OVD-Info.
2018
OVD-Info managed to attract more than 19.8 million rubles, of which about 5.66 million was attained through crowdfunding.
2019
59.5 million rubles, 64% of which were private donations.
2020
Private donations accounted for 67% of all OVD-Info finances. In total, the project attracted 67 million rubles.
2021
The volume of private donations to the project increased by almost 6 times. In February alone, OVD-Info received 58,000 donations in the amount of 57 million rubles. In total, by the end of 2021, the project was supported by 19 thousand regular donors, in 2021 it raised 247.5 million rubles. private donations.
2023
About 14-17 thousand people have been supporting the project every month.
Awards
July 2019: ''
Redkollegia
''Redkollegia'' () is an independent media award established by the Sreda Foundation headed by Boris Zimin to support free professional journalism in Russia. In 2015, after the Sreda Foundation was closed, charitable activities of Boris Zimin ar ...