For the first time in Russia, a criminal case has been opened for failure to comply with the law on “foreign agents”

A criminal case has been opened against the chairman of the “Women of the Don Union”, Valentina Cherevatenko, for “malicious evasion” of the law on NGOs-“foreign agents”, under Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code. The Vedomosti newspaper wrote about this on June 28, citing the text of the resolution to initiate the case.

According to investigators, in 2013, Cherevatenko, “with criminal intent,” in order to avoid compliance with the law on “foreign agents,” registered a fund of the same name and “deliberately” did not submit an application for inclusion in the register. The foundation received funding from the German Heinrich Böll Foundation and conducted educational seminars and developed the capacity of public figures, which law enforcement authorities considered “political activity.”

Meanwhile, the “Women of the Don” union in June 2014 became the first organization forcibly included in the register of “foreign agents” after the Ministry of Justice was vested with such powers. The fund was included in the register in 2015. Cherevatenko challenged the inclusion of the NPO in the register in court and achieved the exclusion of the union from the list of “foreign agents.” It is known that on Friday, June 24, searches and seizure of documents took place in the organization’s office in Novocherkassk as part of a criminal case initiated, according to Valentina Cherevatenko’s lawyer, on June 22. "

According to Cherevatenko, pressure on her intensified after the launch of the “Civil Minsk” project, dedicated to civilian control over the implementation of the Minsk agreements. At the same time, in a conversation with Vedomosti, she stated that the NPO has not received foreign funding for a long time.

As reported on the Amnesty International website, the pre-investigation check against Cherevatenko continued from May 2016, and a criminal case was opened on June 22. On June 24, a search was conducted at the organization’s office in Novocherkassk and documents were confiscated.

This is the first time a criminal case has been initiated under Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code. The article was introduced into the Criminal Code in 2012, when the Ministry of Justice did not have the authority to add NPOs to the register on its own. The maximum penalty under this article is two years in prison.

• On May 23, 2022, the Prosecutor General's Office recognized the German Heinrich Böll Foundation as an “undesirable organization.”