George Clooney and several NGOs have sued Russia for a missile attack on a Ukrainian city. Now Moscow is taking revenge.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has banned the foundation of US actor George Clooney and his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. “The activities of the Clooney Foundation for Justice are declared undesirable on the territory of our country,” the authority announced on Monday. The organization is “carrying out extensive work to discredit Russia, actively supporting false patriots and members of banned terrorist and extremist groups,” the statement said.
George Clooney fights for human rights
The foundation is promoting initiatives “for criminal investigations against the highest Russian authorities under the guise of humanitarian ideas” and on a “Hollywood scale,” the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office continued. The “Clooney Foundation for Justice” says it campaigns for human rights and offers free legal aid to victims of human rights violations in dozens of countries around the world.
In July, the foundation, together with other non-governmental organizations, filed a lawsuit against Russia before the UN Human Rights Committee for alleged human rights violations. Specifically, the case concerned a rocket attack on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia two years ago.
Last October, the Clooney Foundation for Justice also turned to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The foundation’s experts saw evidence of war crimes in three cases through reports from victims or their families and through photos, videos and satellite images.
One of these involved a rocket attack on a tourist resort in the Odessa region, in which many civilians were said to have been killed and others seriously injured in the summer of 2022. In a second case, Russian ground troops in the then-occupied Kharkiv region are said to have tortured and executed four men between March and September 2022. A third incident identified commanders of Russian units who were said to have been involved in executions, torture, sexual violence and looting during the occupation of the Kyiv region in March 2022.
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According to the International Criminal Code, it is possible for the Federal Prosecutor General to investigate certain crimes that were not committed in Germany. The background to this is the so-called principle of universal jurisdiction: war criminals should not find safe refuge anywhere in the world.
Russia cracks down on critics
Since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have intensified the repression of dissidents to a degree not seen since the end of the Soviet Union. The classification as an undesirable organization already applies to numerous political, cultural and religious groups as well as to various media. At the beginning of August, for example, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office declared the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is close to the CDU, as “undesirable.”
The measure is practically equivalent to a ban in Russia. Russian employees or partners can be prosecuted.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
