The NGO Gagarin Park complained to the ECHR about its status as a “foreign agent”

The Samara-based non-profit organization Gagarin Park has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights against the inclusion of NGOs in the register of “foreign agents,” lawyer Irina Khrunova told Novaya Gazeta. The complaint was sent on Tuesday, January 17th.

The Ministry of Justice recognized Gagarin Park as a so-called "foreign agent" on August 31, 2016, after an unscheduled inspection carried out at the request of an unknown person.

As Khrunova notes, from August to December in the Samara region, "with the active participation of the regional department of the Ministry of Justice," there were six more foreign agents. The Alumni Club of American Programs, the Association of Medical Workers of the City of Chapaevsk, the Samara Province Charitable Foundation, the non-profit partnership Internet Community, and the autonomous non-profit organization for social support of the population Project April from Tolyatti were also included in the register.

The main activity of the "Gagarin Park" created in 2011 is the publication of the website of the same name. Thus, the Samara Department of the Ministry of Justice actually called publications in officially registered media a political activity, the lawyer notes. At the same time, the judge of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Samara, to which the journalists filed a complaint, was not established a single fact of financing the legal entity ANO Park Gagarina from foreign sources. In November, Judge Elena Samarina of the Samara Regional Court upheld the ruling of the district court imposing an administrative fine of 300,000 rubles.