The court fined Ekovakhta 80 thousand rubles under the article on “undesirable organization”

The Maikop City Court fined the “Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus” 80 thousand rubles under the article on carrying out the activities of an “undesirable organization” (20.33 of the Administrative Code). MBH Media writes about this.

The court found a violation of the law in the fact that Ecowatch published materials on blogs on the Open Russia website and shared publications with the movement’s logo on its resources.

The court hearing took place on April 9, but representatives of Ekovakhta were not present at it, since they were being searched that day. “The court considered it in the absence of the organization, despite the fact that the coordinator of “Ekovakhta” Andrei Rudomakha called the court and reported these emergency circumstances. Also, the investigator who carried out the search called the court and informed the judge, but the judge decided that this was not a disrespectful reason and considered the case in the absence of Ekovakhta,” said the organization’s lawyer Maxim Olenichev.

According to him, this is the first case opened against a legal entity due to Open Russia under Article 20.33. “Previously, cases against legal entities were initiated only because of cooperation with the Open Society Institute. There were four cases against them against independent civil organizations,” the lawyer explained.

On April 9, a search was conducted at the Ecological Watch office in Krasnodar. Later it became known that the reason for this was a criminal case under Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code (carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization), initiated against the ex-coordinator of Open Russia Yana Antonova. Antonova's place was also searched.

• On November 30, 2015, the Prosecutor General's Office recognized OSI, the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation, as an undesirable organization.
• In April 2017, the Prosecutor General's Office recognized as undesirable several organizations associated with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, registered in the UK and the USA. The Russian Open Russia movement was not banned. Despite this, administrative cases are regularly opened against its activists for participation in the activities of an undesirable organization.
• On March 30, Open Russia announced its self-liquidation for security reasons.