More than 30 “foreign agents” fought for their rights in the courts in the last week of June

The case of the “First Department” is in the Supreme Court, Klochkova (Bortnikova) is the most productive judge of the week, prosecution of musician Dmitry Spirin, journalist Ilya Shepelin, lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov and others.

New “foreign agents” - now there are 1,123 of them

• sociologist Elena Koneva ;
• "Autonomous action". The AD website says that “this is an interregional anarcho-communist association, the goal of which is the implementation of libertarian communism (free socialism), based on principles such as direct democracy, public self-government and federalism. As the central point of our struggle we proclaim the complete destruction of the State and all its institutions. Instead of a bureaucratic state, we propose the creation of a system of people's self-government."
• publication " Echo ";
• the Crimean Solidarity movement , which highlights the persecution of Crimean Tatars and provides support for local political prisoners. The Ministry of Justice listed lawyers Emil Kurbedinov and Edem Semedlyaev as participants in the movement.

New “foreign agents” were included in the register because, according to the Ministry of Justice , they disseminated “inaccurate information about the policies pursued in the Russian Federation,” interacted with other “foreign agents” and criticized the war in Ukraine. “Crimean Solidarity” was additionally accused of “interacting with members of international terrorist organizations, as well as with government authorities of Ukraine.”

Foreign Broadcasting LLC was excluded from the register due to its liquidation.

The Ministry of Justice will again complicate the life of “foreign agents”

Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Sviridenko said that “foreign agents” will be required to carry out all operations with their assets accompanied by a notary. Let us remind you that from March 1, 2025, “foreign agents” must receive money for certain transactions (for example, from the sale of a car) into a special ruble account, and they cannot use this money at their own discretion. The state can write off these funds to pay fines for violations, for example, of “foreign agency” legislation. We talked about the law in more detail in this memo .

“One gets the feeling that they want to prohibit foreign agents from any gratuitous real estate transactions. Since last year, there have been rumors that notaries were allegedly prohibited from preparing many types of documents for foreign agents. If this is the case, then the notarial form will become another obstacle,” said First Department lawyer Evgeny Smirnov to the Agency.

Who could not challenge entry into the register

The “First Department” continues to challenge the status of “foreign agent”. On June 22, the Supreme Court rejected our cassation appeal. This is the last instance in Russia in which we could try to challenge the decision of the Ministry of Justice. The next stage is filing a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee. Let us recall that as the official reason for the “foreign agency”, the Ministry of Justice indicated that the “First Department”:

• “opposed the special military operation in Ukraine”;
• “disseminated false information about the decisions taken by public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies pursued by them”;
• “disseminated information facilitating the provision of financial support to Ukraine and organizations whose activities are recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation”;
• “took part in the creation and dissemination of messages and materials of foreign agents to an unlimited number of people”;
• “cooperates with persons included in the register of foreign agents.”

On June 24, Judge Nikolai Zhudov refused to satisfy the complaint challenging the “foreign agent” status of playwright Artur Solomonov. In addition to the legal justification for the illegality of the actions of the Ministry of Justice, Solomonov’s complaints also indicate his personal opinion on inclusion in the register:

“I consider the “law on foreign agents” to be insignificant in legal terms, and harmful and extremely dangerous for the present and future of the country, and I am confident that those who now support this “law” with their efforts will become either its victim or the victim of “laws” similar to it, because lawlessness knows almost no exceptions.

I insist that the names of the group of people who recognized me and other Russian citizens as “foreign agents” be disclosed: their anonymity makes an already dubious law even more dubious. I want to believe that the time will come when adult professional people will not waste their lives on harmful nonsense.”

On June 25, in the Second Court of Cassation, Judge Elena Repina rejected the complaint of economist Andrei Movchan . On the same day, the same court was supposed to consider complaints about the inclusion of five more “foreign agents” in the register: journalist Farida Kurbangaleeva , journalist Pavel Kanygin , orientalist Nikita Smagin , ex-Mufti of North Ossetia Ali-Khadzhi Evteev , human rights activist Anna Karetnikova . At the time of publication of this text, there is no information on the results of the hearings on the court’s website.

Fines

On June 25, Judge Fedorova fined journalist Alexander Ryklin. The court decision states that Ryklin “failed to provide the foreign agent with the authorized body of information (information), the presentation of which is provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation on foreign agents.” This means that he did not report to the Ministry of Justice about his income and expenses. The amount of the fine is hidden in the court decision.

Photo: court decision

The following also received fines for failure to submit reports:

A court in St. Petersburg fined Andrei Kurochkin from the I NEWS project for failing to report himself as a “foreign agent.”

On Friday, June 26, judges from different cities were supposed to consider protocols against several more “foreign agents.” At the time of publication of this text, it was not specified on the court websites how the hearings in the cases ended:

• journalist Lyubov Barabashova - in the court of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk it was planned to consider three protocols at once;
• ex-political prisoner and priest Ioann Kurmoyarov - in the court of St. Petersburg;
• journalist Elena Solovyova - in the court of Syktyvkar.

Over the past week, at least five “foreign agents” failed to challenge the fines in the appellate court:

• ecologist Evgeniy Simonov - failure to submit a report. The court decided to return the complaint against the applicant without considering the merits;
• ex-dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences of Shaninka Vasily Zharkov - failure to report himself as a “foreign agent”;
• economist, ex-vice rector of the Higher School of Economics Konstantin Sonin - lack of a blank on posts in the personal Telegram channel “Konstantin Sonin”;
• activist Yaroslav Rasputin - lack of a blank on posts in his personal Telegram channel “Diary of a provincial fagot”;
• musician Dmitry Spirin - failure to submit a report.