Agency reward

The judge of the Tver District Court of Moscow Ales Orekhova fined 300 thousand rubles to the International Historical, Educational, Charitable and Human Rights Society Memorial for refusing to voluntarily register as a “foreign agent”. This is reported by Interfax.

The court found the NPO guilty of an administrative offense under Article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the procedure for the activity of an NPO, performing the functions of a foreign agent). He agreed with the position of the Ministry of Justice, who considered that the organization violated the legislation on "agents".

In court, the representative of the Memorial said that the organization does not consider itself guilty. "According to the decision of the Constitutional Court, international organizations cannot be" foreign agents ", so the" memorial "is impossible as" agents ",” she said.

After the decision is announced, the Executive Director of the Memorial Elena Zhemkova said that the NPO would challenge the resolution. According to her, the Ministry of Justice as a substantiation of the political activity of the Memorial used private opinions and statements of some members of the organization. “We wanted to call them, but the court refused us. This is their opinion, and not the political position of the Memorial. In addition, our statements were used before the entry into force of the Law on NGOs,” said Zhemkova.

On October 4, the Ministry of Justice decided to include the "International Memorial" in the Register of Foreign Agents. "We consider this decision to be unlawful and will appeal and dispute it in the courts," the NGO said in a statement.

On October 24, the Ministry of Justice sent a protocol on an administrative offense against the Memorial for refusing to register as an “agent”. “They drew up a protocol that since we did not include ourselves voluntarily, this is an offense. This protocol was transferred to the court, then the court will resolve this issue,” said Zhemkova. “Naturally, we do not agree with this, we still have a pre -trial stage.”

Before the court’s decision on the authority of the recognition of NPOs by the “foreign agent” there is no administrative offense, Permova emphasized. According to her, the Ministry of Justice has not yet responded to the objections of the "memorial", and also did not provide an act of decision to include "agents" in the register.

"When we get this paper, we will sue ourselves with appealing the decision to include in the register," the executive director said.