The ecovakhta is ordered to pass

The activities of the environmental organization were suspended for six months

The Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Adygea suspended the activities of the ecological shift in the North Caucasus for six months. According to the officials of the department, the organization does not comply with its own charter, and also takes part in various protests in the Krasnodar Territory. Ecologists deny the accusations against them and intend to go to court.

The leadership of the ecological shift in the North Caucasus received the presentation of the Ministry of Justice of Adygea the other day. Only then it turned out that the issue of suspension of the organization was resolved at the end of March.

Ekovakhta coordinator Andrei Rudomakh considers this an attempt to put pressure on independent ecologists . In his opinion, the authorities take revenge on activists for the recently presented Eokovakhta report on the influence of Olympic construction on the Sochi ecosystem. The collection was called "Sochi-2014: ten years without the right to law" and caused a large public outcry.

On the eve of the Olympiad, the Ministry of Justice of Adygea was already trying to organize an audit of this NPO, but it was constantly postponing - as a result, the ecologists could not provide the necessary documents in time, said the head of the department of non -profit organizations of the department Bell Meretukova . In particular, the fact that Ekovakhta was established as a regional organization, but has no representative offices in a number of cities of the South of Russia, which is a violation of the charter.

Dmitry Shevchenko, Deputy Coordinator of the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus, believes that the absence of Ekovakhta’s office, for example, in Dagestan, was only a pretext for suspension of independent environmental activities :

- The Ministry of Justice presented three grounds on which our activities stop. Firstly, officials claim that we have not provided a package of documents necessary to verify our activities. A notification of a planned audit was sent to us at the end of last year. We provided part of the documents, for example, the decision of the governing bodies, various protocols on time. But the part could not, because during the Olympiad for the organization there was a powerful pressure, provocations against activists were arranged, there was a trial in the case of Yevgeny Vitishko. All this, of course, was distracted from paper work. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice demanded from us copies of our entire correspondence, up to the electronic. But these are whole volumes, they are simply physically impossible to process in such a short time. In the end, administrative production was aroused against us. Secondly, we are charged with that our representative offices do not work in some regions. But this is not so: in six cities our offices are open, and we closed the representative office in Dagestan long before the start of the checks, about which the conference protocol was drawn up. Well, thirdly, we are accused of that we, without representation in the Krasnodar Territory, organized political actions. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice gives a list of events in the organization of which we supposedly took part. But our activists not only did not organize anything, but even did not accept participation in such promotions. Neither in the shares “for honest elections”, nor in protest promotions to protect the Kudepstinsky TPP. At individual events, our individual activists were noticed, but this does not mean that Ekovakhta itself organized them. The Ministry of Justice does not understand that we are not a political organization, our task is to protect nature.

The Ministry of Justice of Adygea refused detailed comments, limiting himself to the remark that the activities of Ekovakhta could be resumed after September 21 of this year. But only on condition that activists will eliminate existing violations.

Next week, the shift leaders intend to appeal to the courts to challenge the decision of the Adyghe Ministry of Justice. According to the ecologist Andrei Rudomakhi, the repressions that Ekovakhte activists faced throughout the years of preparation for the recent Olympiad found a logical conclusion in the resolution of the Adyghe ministry:

- For regional authorities, ecologists as a bone in the throat. Eokovakhta openly talks about the damage that was inflicted on the environment in the course of preparation for the Sochi Olympics. We published the facts of illegal construction in specially protected areas.

Last spring, the Maykop office of the organization was blocked by the FSB officers, the prosecutor's office and the Center for Combating Extremism of the Krasnodar Territory. Verification of documents and electronic correspondence was accompanied by questions about “spy” activities.

On the eve of 2014, an activist of Ekovakhty, Yevgeny Vitishko, who was now serving a sentence in the Tambov region, was sentenced to three years in the year of 2014. The authorities, according to Andrei Rudomakh, avenged Vitishko. In particular, he actively fought for the ban on gravel mining for Olympic needs at the mouth of the Shahe River.

Earlier, the ecologist was sentenced to three years conditionally for damage to the so -called “fence in the alleged dacha” of the Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachev, located in the village of Bzhid of the Tuapsinsky district. In the same case, a colleague of Vitishko - Suren Gazaryan, now living in forced emigration, was also convicted by a conditional time.