Employees of the prosecutor's office "under the cover" visited the stand of the Memorial at the book fair in Moscow in search of violations of "foreign Agents"

On September 4, employees of the prosecutor’s office of the Tver district of Moscow staged an audit at the stand of the International Historical, Charitable and Human Rights Society Memorial, included in the register of “foreign Agents”, at the Moscow International Book Fair in Manezh. As reported on the website of the Memorial, visits first "pretended to be interested visitors."

“We explained that all our publications are free, but if you wish, you can make a donation in a special box box. Representatives of the prosecutor’s office chose the catalog for the Vrilek Bromberg exhibition. Only after that they presented the documents and officially announced the prosecutor’s audit,” said Elena Zhemkova, the executive director of the organization.

After that, the inspectors examined the entire assortment seized nine items of printed materials without marking organizations entered in the register of "foreign agents". According to Zhemkova, even those publications that were issued long before the appearance of laws on “foreign agents”, in particular, the catalog of the Memorial Museum, published in 1998, were issued to the verification act.

“At the stand of the international memorial there is a special stamp with information about entering the register that we put in old books if visitors want to get such books. We were not given the opportunity to put this stamp on the books taken by the prosecutor’s office,” said Zhemkova.

The decision of the prosecutor’s office says that the basis for verification is “the available information on violations of the legislation”, and the subject of verification is the implementation of the requirements of the legislation on non -profit organizations, Kommersant writes

Tatyana Glushkova, lawyer of the Memorial human rights center, specified the newspaper that the book “Violin Bromberg”, which was taken by the prosecutor’s office at the very beginning, was recently published and there is a typographic marking on it. Without finding a violation, visitors presented a document on conducting an audit and took one copy of nemarled books and postcards.

Glushkova suggested that the removal of books without marking will become the basis for drawing up a protocol on 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). It provides for a fine for officials in the amount of 100-300 thousand rubles, for legal entities-300-500 thousand rubles.

“If we are punished, then this will be the next step towards the expansion interpretation of the law on foreign agents, and such as it was impossible to suggest,” said Glushkova. She explained that neither for intention, nor for preparation for the commission of the Code of Administrative Offenses. The punishable is only the ended composition of the administrative violation, for example, the fact of distribution. On September 5, at the request of the prosecutor’s office, the organizers of the fair glued the “Memorial” stand with sheets A4 with the text of the marking.

"International Memorial" was included in the register of organizations acting as "foreign agents", on October 4, 2016. The Office of Roskomnadzor in the Central Federal District amounted to 28 protocols on the administrative offense of Part 2 of Art. 19.34 Code of Administrative Offenses for the "International Memorial" and the Human Rights Center "Memorial" and their leaders Yana Rachinsky and Alexander Cherkasov (two for official and on a legal entity - for each Internet resource).

All protocols were considered by the Tver District Court of Moscow, two proceedings were terminated for two proceedings, fines were written out for the rest. The Moscow City Court examined 25 appeals, 22 were rejected, three decisions were sent for a review. The total amount of the appointed fines is 5.3 million rubles.

On August 18, the Tver court once again fined Rachinsky for 100 thousand rubles for the lack of mentioning the “international memorial” in the register of “foreign Agents” on the site “personnel composition of state security bodies of the USSR. 1935–1939”.