Today, the St. Petersburg City Court upheld the decision of the Kuibyshevsky District Court to impose a fine of 300000 rubles on the human rights organization “Citizens’ Watch” for not labeling requests to the Ministry of Justice with “foreign agent ” mark.
Last summer, the chair of Citizens’ Watch, Elena Shakhova, requested information from the Ministry of Justice about the procedure for maintaining the register of affiliated persons and data on the existence and number of persons affiliated with the organization. We were denied this information, and Roskomnadzor drew up a protocol on an administrative offense against our human rights NGO.
Elena Shakhova, Chair of the Board of Citizens’ Watch
In the appellate instance, we asked the court to overturn the decision of the Kuibyshevsky District Court not only because the case was examined without our participation, although we provided a respective motion, but also because it is insubstantial in nature. If we proceed from this decision, then “foreign agents” must mark any appeal they make to public authorities, regardless of whether such an appeal is related to “political activity” or not. This means that any activity of the organization, even economic, is considered political.
This is the second fine that the human rights organization “Citizens’ Watch” has to pay since the beginning of the year. In February, the organization paid, with great difficulty, the 300000 rubles collected for outdated reporting forms, which, however, were offered on the official website of the Ministry of Justice as the valid version. Now the organization has two months to find the funds to pay the new 300000 rubles. We are again forced to ask for help from our friends, supporters and all caring people in this fundraising effort. Otherwise, we will face bankruptcy, confiscation of property and liquidation.