“Strong tendencies to divide Russia’s and Germany’s civil societies”
Picture: picture alliance / dpa / Uwe Zucchi The German public radio station Deutschlandfunk today reported on the perspectives of the German-Russian Petersburg dialogue forum, which is currently taking place near Bonn, Germany. In the report, Petersburg dialogue board member and EPDE Chair Stefanie Schiffer states: “The Petersburg dialogue is an institution which has […]
How should the Council of Europe treat Russia?
imago/imagebroker Stefanie Schiffer speaks in Deutschlandfunk about a threat to the credibility of the Council of Europe if the sanctions against the Russian Delegation are lifted without any improvement of the situation in Crimea and the Donbas. Please find the full interview with Stefanie Schiffer under the following link.
The globalisation of Pro-Kremlin Networks of politically Biased Election observation: the cases of Cambodia and Zimbabwe
Source: https://www.facebook.com/aariikaa/posts/10160611503200317 Executive Summary Due to the fact that the Cambodian authorities banned the main opposition party in 2017, Western states declined to send any observers to monitor the parliamentary elections in Cambodia held on 29 July 2018. On the contrary, for the first time since 2002, Western institutions sent several missions to monitor […]
Regional elections 2018: Politically biased election observation
Source: omskportal.ru Executive summary The Russian organisation National Social Monitoring (NSM) coordinated by Roman Kolomoytsev invited 10 international experts to attend the regional elections in several Russian oblasts during the so-called single voting day. They were not officially accredited by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) as election observers, but the Russian media and individual […]
Stefanie Schiffer was denied a Russian visa
Stefanie Schiffer, EPDE chair and since 2015 member of the board of the German-Russian high-level conference “Petersburger Dialog” was denied a Russian visa to attend the 17. annual conference of the Dialogue in Moscow on 7th and 8th October 2018. German mass media report critically on this decision. Schiffer claims that EPDE should be removed […]
Politically Biased International Election Observation at the 2018 Regional Elections in Russia
The majority of the international experts, who attended the regional elections in several Russian oblasts during the so-called single voting day, have a history of participating in various pro-Kremlin efforts. Although they were not officially accredited by Russia’s CEC as election observers, the Russian media and individual members of the CEC often referred to them […]
German scientist community supports EPDE
In an open letter to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, dozens of German scientists and representatives of think tanks such as the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) and the German Association […]
Media coverage of EPDE’s listing as “undesirable” in Russia
On 13 March 2018, the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), a civil society network of independent election observation organizations, and its Lithuanian member International Elections Study Center (IESC) were classified as “undesirable organizations” by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, without explaining any reasons. EPDE protested against this decision and was supported […]
Russian Golos forced to temporarily freeze its cooperation with EPDE
The listing of EPDE as „undesirable foreign organisation“ in Russia limits, in the first instance, the rights of Russian citizen election observers and isolates them from international election observation and contacts with experts from other countries. The Russian state can impose a high fine, as well as even a prison term of up to six […]
Kremlin-friendly election observers from Europe and US at the presidential elections in Russia
Source: http://ikkk.ru/news/mezhdunarodnye-nablyudateli-ot-evropejskogo-parlamenta-i-mezhdunarodnyh-obshhestvennyh-obedinenij-posetili-krasnodarskij-kraj/ Executive summary 1513 foreign electoral observers monitored the Russian 2018 presidential election which constitutes the largest foreign electoral monitoring mission in Russia’s history. 598 of these observers were deployed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human […]