Mikhail Benyash said that he was recognized as a “foreign agent” because of lawyer fees

Mikhail Benyash was recognized as a “foreign agent” because of the attorney fees he received from the Sfera Foundation, the Memorial Human Rights Center, OVD-Info and Apology. He wrote about this in his Telegram channel.

All of these human rights organizations at different times were themselves recognized as “foreign agents,” however, as the lawyer writes, Apology paid him for his work before it was included in the “foreign agent” register of the Ministry of Justice.

“All this money is white lawyer’s fees, passed through a white lawyer’s account, from which, among other things, I also pay fees to the chamber,” Benyash noted.

The lawyer was added to the register of individual “foreign agents” in October 2022. On January 17, the Pervomaisky District Court took measures to provide preliminary protection to the lawyer while his claim against the Ministry of Justice was being considered, temporarily removing his status, but on January 31 it reversed this decision.

In addition, the Bar Association of the Krasnodar Territory is currently conducting disciplinary proceedings to deprive Benyash of his lawyer status on the recommendation of the Ministry of Justice. According to officials, his publications on social networks “discredit the civil service, as well as employees of executive authorities.” On January 27, the qualification commission of the chamber agreed with the department’s claims.

• Mikhail Benyash has been under pressure from the state for several years. In 2018, a case was opened against Benyash for violence against a police officer (Part 1 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code). Then the lawyer said that security forces beat him when he was on his way to join the detainees at a protest against pension reform. According to the investigation, during the arrest Benyash bit one police officer on the hand and hit the second in the face three times with his elbow. The lawyer spent a month in a pre-trial detention center and was later released on bail of 600 thousand rubles. Subsequently, Benyash was found guilty and fined 30 thousand rubles, but the appeal court sent the case for review.
• On February 6, Mikhail Benyash was fined 30 thousand rubles due to anti-war posts on Telegram. This is not his first administrative case about discrediting the army (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code), however, the previous one - about the video on the Protocol channel, in which Benyash expressed his opinion about the war in Ukraine - was dismissed by the Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar in August 2022 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
• In February 2022, OVD-Info launched the Inoteka project. We explore the practice of applying laws on “foreign agents”, talk about their impact on civil society and specific people, initiate discussions with experts and suggest ways of possible changes. In December 2021, together with the Center for the Protection of Media Rights, we began to provide legal support to people and organizations that were included in the registers of “foreign agents.”