Liquidation "Agora"

Andrey Kozenko recalls the most high -profile cases of a human rights organization

On Wednesday, February 10, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan at the initiative of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation eliminated the AGOR interregional legal association. This is the first case of forced closure of a human rights organization in Russia. The court decided that the Agora, recognized as a “foreign agent”, was actively engaged in political activities - and thereby violated the law. Lawyers will appeal this decision in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Medusa journalist Andrei Kozenko talks about the most vivid things that the lawyers of the Agora were engaged in.

The association was created back in 2005 in Kazan as a result of the merger of several human rights organizations. In Moscow, she was seriously spoke about 2011: Agora lawyers were one of the first to begin to defend people who received administrative penalties for detentions at rallies. A rare case in Russian practice: the human rights association created outside Moscow gradually became extremely influential at the Russian level.

But the lawyers of the Agora by that time had experience in difficult matters. Back in 2007, they entered into a high -profile case about the beating of ecologists by neo -Nazis in Angarsk. Then, during an attack on the Green camp, one of the ecologists died - Ilya Borodaenko. The case lasted for quite some time, suspended. However, in 2011, a conviction was sentenced. One of the attackers - Evgeny Panov, nicknamed "Boomer" - received 18 years in colony in conjunction with other cases. Four out of twenty neo -Nazis gave eight years in prison, the rest escaped with conditional terms.

The first truly serious case of Agora is the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in January 2009. The lawyers of the "Agora" represented the interests of the victims. And with their participation, neo -Nazi, Nikita Tikhonov, found guilty of the murder, received a life sentence, and his civil wife and accomplice Eugene Hasis were sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Later, Agora entered into the Borna - “combat organization of Russian nationalists”, speaking on the side of the victims and their relatives. The gang participants were sentenced, including for life imprisonment. In 2015, and also with the participation of Agora lawyers, Tikhonov received an additional 18 years by life for participation in Born. In the same year, the process was held over Ilya Goryachev, whom the court recognized as one of the creators and ideologist of the gang; This ended for him for life imprisonment.

By that time, the Agora had become an already developed network structure - 40 of its lawyers worked in 35 regions of the country. Lawyers actively took up cases in which there was an obvious political connotation, and for affairs that caused obvious public resonance. In addition, the organization has always been able to competently and work well with journalists, and the head of the Agora Pavel Chikov turned out to be one of the most popular experts on human rights topics.

"Agora" was very much needed by people far from jurisprudence. This became completely clear after the sensational case of musical critic Artemy Troitsky. November 10, 2010-on the day of the police-he went on stage during the concert of the DDT group and announced that he recognized the employee of the 3rd special battalion of the traffic police Nikolai Khovansky as “the most fifty cop in Russia”. This policeman was the first to arrive at the resonance accident on Leninsky Prospekt, when in an accident with the Mercedes Vice President Anatoly Barkov, two women were killed-Vera Sidelnikov and Olga Alexandrina. They were found guilty of a car accident.

In the concert hall was the daughter of Khovansky, and her father went to court. He won the civil case of the protection of honor and dignity - Troitsky simply did not understand how to defend himself. However, when Khovansky appealed to the criminal court, accusing Troitsky of insult and extremism, Irina Khrunova’s lawyer came into the case and achieved a complete excuse for musical critic.

The lawyers of the "Agora" at different stages of the process participated in the "Swamp business". Among their clients were Alexei Gaskarov, Andrei Barabanov, Denis Lutskievich, Artem Savelov and Alexei Polikhovich. All of them received prison terms.

With the participation of Agora lawyers, the case of the beating of journalist Oleg Kashin was investigated. In this case, Agora joined the case quite late, and her work came down to pushing the investigation. Thanks to lawyers, it became known that the acquaintance of the governor of the Pskov region Andrei Turchak, businessman Alexander Gorbunov, may be involved in the case of beating Kashin. He was arrested in 2015, but then he was released under a recognizance not to leave.

After the Pussy Riot groups received the legendary “two -legged”, Agora lawyers also took up their defense. They wrote cassation complaints and a statement to the European Court of Human Rights (this complaint was communicated, but has not yet been considered).

“Agora” was always interested in political affairs, but was not only engaged in them. For example, she defended the accused in the case of the crash of the Falcon aircraft when taking up Vnukovo Airport. Then four citizens of France were killed, including the president of Total oil company Christoph de Margeri.

Another political, but known to the whole country, the Agora case is about torture in the Kazan police department of the Dalniy. The local police raped one of the victims with a bottle of champagne. There were other bullying - over other people, they were protected by the lawyers of the Agora. The department was disbanded, trying people from the police received from six to 13 years in prison.

Gradually, Agora accustomed the public to the fact that resonant cases without her lawyers are not dispensed. More recently, the lawyers of the Association Dmitry Dinze and Olga Chadvar defended the accused of terrorism director Oleg Sentsov (20 years in prison) and anti -fascist Alexander Kolchenko (10 years old). With the participation of lawyer Dinze, the trial of the vandalism accused by the artist Peter Pavlensky will take place.

Finally, the lawyer of the Agora Damir Gainutdinov saved from the ban on the Klotostok group - the Yaroslavl court tried to recognize her work with extremism with elements of pornography.

“Agora” is one of the first organizations in Russia recognized as a “foreign agent”-for receiving grants from abroad. Human rights activists in response to this decision abandoned foreign financing and demanded exception from the registry. This did not help them. The claim of the Ministry of Justice, satisfied with the court of Tatarstan, says that Agora violated the requirements for the law on non -profit organizations: being a “foreign agent”, she “continued to influence public opinion”.

In the human rights organization itself, the decision was commented very calmly. “For all the time of activity, the association was engaged in socially significant and generally used activities, was under constant supervision by the regulatory authorities that did not reveal any significant unheard of violations in its activities,” said Ramil Akhmetgaliev, lawyer Ramil Akhmetgaliev.

The courts were clearly ready for such a court decision - lawyers who were part of the association intend to calmly continue to work. “For six months I am no longer the head of the organization, there was one full -time employee in it. It has been mothballed for a long time, ”Pavel Chikov responded to the decision of the court. - So the Ministry of Justice literally fights with a ghost. Not even like that: it was a barge stuffed with gunpowder, which we fitted to the front line. The dudes on her with a fool and struggled. Admit it, you don’t think that, having 15 years of legal resistance to the authorities, the lawyers of the Agora did not learn how to calculate their actions a few steps forward? ”

Nevertheless, the “Agora” ban will appeal its ban on the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

Andrey Kozenko

Moscow