Russian Rights Activist Says US Rights Groups Borrow Experience From Russia

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Alexander Ionov, a Russian human rights activist and anti-globalist wanted in the United States for alleged election meddling, told Sputnik that American rights advocacy groups had engaged Russian counterparts to gain experience that they successfully applied at home.

"There are many such [useful] laws in Russia, for example, the law on social control, which Americans in the state of Illinois, for example, learned about and actively promoted. Last year, they successfully passed a watered-down Russian version of the law, which established social control over the police. Now civil society activists can come to a police station and assess detention conditions," he said.

The number of engagements between Russian and American human rights defenders declined after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but was back on the rise in the 2010s. Russians and Americans have met in the Middle East to discuss US rights abuses in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Ionov, who heads the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), said.

"After the so-called Arab Spring began in the Middle East, many rights defenders and activists in the West spoke out against interference in other countries’ home affairs. They came together to form solidarity groups around the world," he said.

The US Department of Justice last year offered up to $10 million for information about Ionov, whom it accuses of orchestrating a "years-long foreign malign influence campaign" from at least December 2014 until March 2022 that allegedly used US political groups "to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States."

The Justice Department has also charged human rights groups associated with AGMR, Ionov said, effectively violating the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and assembly. He said some 40 US organizations had cooperated with AGMR, in addition to partners in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

"We see that they have virtually nullified the constitution. We never directed them [US political groups] to do anything. The dialogue between our organizations was completely free, as is the case with other organizations and parties in other countries," Ionov insisted.