The Ministry of Justice of Russia has registered five people and one organization in the Unified Register of Foreign Agents. Relevant information appeared on the department’s website.
The list included:
blogger Ilya Varlamov*; head of the human rights organization “Agora” Pavel Chikov*; former Dozhd* TV journalist Bogdan Bakaleyko*; political scientist Ruslan Aisin*; Svetlana Lada-Rus (Peunova)*, creator of the totalitarian sect and the occult center “Le Chemin du Soleil”; association “Party Plus/Party+”*.
Recently, the Ministry of Justice has started updating the register of foreign agents much less frequently than before. The previous replenishment of the list took place on March 10, when it included economist Sergey Guriev*, former head of Yandex.News Lev Gershenzon*, former State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov*, blogger and nixelpixel artist* , as well as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)* and Free Buryatia Foundation*. The WWF* announced almost immediately that it would contest this decision.
The agency last updated the list on February 17. Then historian and publicist Andrey Zubov*, journalist Andrey Loshak* and the Vozrozhdeniye school of free social thought* were included in it.
There are now over 550 individuals and organizations in the Unified Registry. The law that led to its creation was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in July 2022 and came into force on December 1. After that, to assign the status of “foreign agent”, the authorities only had to indicate the “foreign influence” under which the new person on the list is. This influence is defined in the law as “the provision by a foreign source to a person of support or influence over a person, including by coercion, persuasion or other means”.
In addition to the register of foreign agents, a register of persons affiliated with them has also appeared. It includes founders, leaders or employees of organizations-foreign agents and those who have engaged in political activities and received money from persons and organizations already registered in the register of foreign agents or participated in their activities .
At the end of November 2022, the State Duma adopted a bill amending 40 federal laws to regulate the activities of foreign agents. The adopted norms, in particular, prohibit citizens with such a status from carrying out educational and educational activities with minors, they are also prohibited from being allowed to teach in state and municipal educational institutions.
In June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recognized Russian law on foreign agents violating human rights. He granted 10,000 euros in compensation to each of the 73 candidate non-commissioned officers. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia will not comply with this ECHR ruling.
- recognized in Russia as a foreign agent
