On September 21, the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg imposed fines in the amount of 30 thousand rubles on journalist Elena Shukaeva and IT specialist Mikhail Klimarev : both were found guilty of failure to provide “foreign agency” reports (Part 2 of Article 19.34 of the Administrative Code). This was reported by Vecherniye Vedomosti with reference to the press service of the court.
Shukaeva was added to the register of “foreign agents” in September 2022, after which she left Russia. The woman has repeatedly faced pressure: in particular, she was fined five times due to anti-war statements and was arrested for 14 days for reposting the video “He’s not Dimon for you,” which was made in 2017.
The director of the Internet Protection Society, Mikhail Klimarev, was included in the register in the spring of 2022; he also lives outside of Russia. In January of this year, he was put on the international wanted list under the article on calls for extremism (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code) because of a comment calling on Ukrainian military personnel not to take prisoners of the Russian Guard. Judging by the website of the Leninsky District Court, the man was repeatedly fined due to the lack of “foreign agent” markings in his publications (Part 4 of Article 19.34 of the Administrative Code).
On November 2, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court canceled the decision imposing a fine on Elena Shukaeva. The case was sent for retrial to the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg. This was reported by Vecherniye Vedomosti.
- The legislation on “foreign agents” is becoming stricter every year. On December 1, 2022, the law “On control over the activities of persons under foreign influence” came into force, as well as numerous legislative amendments to “foreign agency” regulation. You can read about the list of “affiliated persons”, new registers and other innovations in the law on “foreign agents” in the analysis of OVD-Info .
- In the fall of 2021, 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.”