For the first time ever, Russian fines a ‘foreign agent’ for failing to identify itself as a foreign agent on Facebook

For the first time ever, a Russian court has fined a registered “foreign agent” for failing to identify itself as a foreign agent on its Facebook page. On August 13, a court in Yoshkar-Ola imposed a 300,000-ruble ($4,430) fine on the “Chelovek i Zakon” (Person and Law) group, which was blacklisted in 2014.

This isn’t the first time the group has been fined for violating Russia’s regulations on foreign agents: in 2016, it was fined 150,000 rubles ($2,215) for failing to identify a blog post by one of its staff on the news site 7x7 as the work of a foreign agent.

Chelovek i Zakon says its page used to identify the group as a foreign agent in Russia, but Facebook apparently modified its page features without any notification, removing the section that contained that information. Lawyers for the organization say they plan to appeal the ruling.

• Russia’s law on foreign agents applies to any organization that accepts money from abroad and engages in so-called political activity. The Justice Ministry currently designates 76 foreign agents, including several human rights groups like Memorial, Golos, Agora, and others.