"Lawyer Street" closes

We talk about an independent journalistic project and how the “in agent” interferes with the work of media in Russia

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Ekaterina Gorbunova, the main editor of Lawyer Street, announced the closure of the project on September 18. According to her, the main reason was the “foreign agency”. The publication was included in the register in April, with the new status he managed to work five months. The Ministry of Justice claims that the project "actively participated in the creation and distribution of materials aimed at the formation of a negative image of Russia, Russian legislation and law enforcement practice." DOXA talks about the work of “Lawyer Street” and explains why the projects are closed due to “foreign agency”.

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“The closure of the“ streets ”is a very difficult but deliberate decision. He has several reasons, but the main one is “foreign” status. After entering the “street” to the register, as the publisher, there are not many options left for organizing further work of the project. And none of them suits me, ” said Ekaterina Gorbunova. After the announcement of the closure, the publication opened a fee of 200 thousand rubles to close without debts. On September 26, the editorial office reported that the required amount was collected.

“Lawyer Street” managed to work for 3.5 years - it was founded in 2019. This is an independent journalistic project, telling about what is happening in the lawyer community: for example, the publication published a text on the ban on digitalization of the Tambov lawyer, also journalist_ki regularly interviewed at relevant topics. In the post on the closure of the project, Ekaterina Gorbunova urged not to unsubscribe from the publication yet: until the end of September, texts that were at the time of publication were released.

By the anniversary of the announcement of mobilization, Vladimir Putin, instructions for those who can affect in theory were published .
On September 25, the journalist_ki talked in detail about how the lawyer chamber of the Chelyabinsk region made a warning to the defender Sergei Fisenko for supporting his colleague Oleg Stepanov, fined for the “discrediting of the army”.
On September 27, the project published a material about who is at the head of the Russian advocacy, why these people do not change for decades and how it allows the “lawyer officials” to declare the invasion of the invasion of Ukraine without asking for ordinary defenders.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the project has also issued detailed analysis of new laws adopted by the Russian authorities. In September, the publication published a text about a bill that allows state agencies to withdraw passports and recognize them invalid, as well as analyzing the draft resolution of the Ministry of Construction of Minor with a ban on publishing information about methods for bypassing blocking. On the anniversary of the beginning of a full -scale war in Ukraine, “Lawyer Street” released material on how the invasion changed Russian law.

These texts concern not only the lawyer community, but in general all Russians. The texts of the publication are intentionally focused on a wide audience. “We are trying to speak not only with lawyers, but also with potential principals - that is, with all the other people,” Ekaterina Gorbunova explained in the Podkast of Novaya Gazeta, “Advisory Room”. "For what? So that ordinary people understand that the problem of lawyers is actually their problem. If we find ourselves under the rule of the state, if we are detained/arrested, we need the protection of lawyers. And how we are protected, will depend on what tools the lawyer possesses. <...> The goal of “Lawyer Street” is to explain to the townsfolk what problems the lawyer faces in Russia. ”

How "in agent" complicates the work of media in Russia

“If you stay in the relative security zone, and not to collect administratives and pack them in a potential criminal case for the leader, then you need to put notes on each content on social networks and on the site, submit reports,” says mediayurist Galina Arapova. “This is a bureaucratic burden, financial risks, it requires temporary and human resources.” According to her, many projects still continue to work with these risks because they find resources and understand what needs to be done.

However, “InoGonetism” makes the development of the project as a business almost irresistible: the organization cannot advertise and cooperate with the projects with which it could do if it had no “foreign” status. “The atmosphere around them [Inoagentine_k] from the state is artificially made toxic,” explains Galina Arapova. “Counterparties, commercial companies, state bodies - they are now a serious impact and pressure so that they do not cooperate and do not communicate with foreign agents.”

From the editor

We urge you to maintain projects that are done by the “foreign -agent_ki” - only we can help them continue to exist despite the pressure of the state. We thank our colleges from “Lawyer Street” for the work that they did all this time, urge you to read their texts and, we hope that we will still see their new projects.

Dasha Manzhura