Russia convicts a prominent election monitoring activist and sentences him to 5 years in prison

A court in Moscow on Wednesday convicted one of the leaders of a prominent independent election monitoring group on charges of organizing the work of an “undesirable” organization and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia’s leading election watchdog Golos, has rejected the charges as politically motivated. The case against him is part of the monthslong crackdown on Kremlin critics and rights activists that the government ratcheted up aft