The Presnensky District Court of Moscow imposed a fine on the Echo Moskvy radio station in a total of 160 thousand rubles for mentioning organizations recognized by the Russian authorities as “foreign agents” without the appropriate labeling. This was announced on Friday, November 26, at the press service of the court.
The protocols were drawn up in accordance with part 2. of article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (on “the dissemination of information about an organization included in the list of associations in respect of which a decision was made to liquidate, without specifying the relevant information”).
Under a similar article, the court also found Vitaly Ruvinsky, editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy website, guilty. He was ordered to pay a fine of 16 thousand rubles, the press service added.
Requirements to repeal the law on “foreign agents”
The radio station’s management has not yet commented on the situation.
The editor-in-chief of Echo Moskvy, Aleksey Venediktov, has repeatedly expressed the opinion that the law on “foreign agents” carries a threat and should be canceled. A number of media outlets, including the radio station and Novaya Gazeta, ran a marathon called “People’s Agents” – demanding the cancellation of the decree. In addition, a petition was launched, which called for attention to this position of the media and a number of public figures, the document collected over 160 thousand signatures.
The list of media “foreign agents” includes 99 items
As of November 26, the register of “media outlets performing the functions of a foreign agent” posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation included 99 items. On this day, SOTA editor-in-chief Oleg Elanchik and Nobel Prize LLC were included in it. The founder of the company is Yelizaveta Surnacheva, a journalist of the Project (the publication is recognized as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation), recognized in October as an “foreign agent”.
The vast majority of the media and journalists on the list have been added to the list in the past four months, starting on 15 July. In addition to Meduza and Dozhd, the register includes The Insider, Bellingcat, Proekt, Mediazona and a large number of independent media journalists. The well-known lawyer Ivan Pavlov was included in the same list.
The status of “foreign agent” has existed in Russia since 2012. This concept appeared in the legislation after the adoption of amendments to the law on non-profit organizations. Any non-profit organization that has received money from abroad and is engaged in political activities, from the point of view of the authorities, can be declared a “foreign agent”. The media and public figures have repeatedly appealed to the Russian authorities with a request to revise the law on “foreign agents” and stop the persecution of journalists in the country.
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