Judicial harassment
Russian
Federation
July 2, 2019
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of
FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), requests your
intervention in the following situation in the Russian Federation.
Description
of the situation:
The
Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the judicial harassment
of Ms. Alexandra Koroleva, Head of the environmental rights NGO Ekozaschita!
(Ecodefence! in English), based in Kaliningrad[1].
According
to the information received, on May 30, 2019, the Russian Federal Court Bailiff
Service filed five criminal complaints against Ms. Alexandra Koroleva for
failing to pay fines resulting from the application of Russia’s 2012 Foreign
Agent Law for Non-Commercial Organisations (hereafter “Foreign Agent Law”),
which targets non-profit organisations receiving foreign financial assistance
or carrying out activities deemed to be “political”. If found guilty, she could
face up to two years in prison.
The five
criminal cases against Ms. Koroleva stem from Ekozaschita!’s refusal to pay
five different administrative fines and were opened under part 2 of Article 315
of the Russian Criminal Code on the “malicious non-execution by the head of
organisation of a court sentence”. According to the Bailiff Service, the amount
due for the five unpaid administrative fines as of May 2019 was 480,000 Rubles
(approximately 6,620 Euros).
In June
2019, Ms. Alexandra Koroleva decided to leave the country and seek political
asylum in Germany to avoid arrest.
The
harassment of Ekozaschita! has been ongoing for seven years as a result of the adoption of the Foreign Agent Law, which
requires all Russian NGOs receiving foreign funding to register on the public
roster of “foreign agents”, a term bearing the Soviet-era connotation of a
“spy” or “traitor” in Russian. In 2012, Ekozaschita! refused to comply with the
law. In 2014, the Ministry of Justice added Ekozaschita! to the “foreign
agents” roster. At that time, the NGO was involved in protests against the
construction of a nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad region – the campaign
of Ekozaschita! started in 2013 and resulted in freezing of construction of the
plant in April, 2014[2].
In total, 28
fines were issued against Ekozaschita! for the violation of the Law on Foreign
Agents. Said fines exceeded two million Rubles (approximately 30,000 Euros). In
November 2018, the Russian authorities froze Ekozaschita!’s bank accounts.
The
Observatory recalls that the Foreign Agent Law has been used since its adoption
to silence Russia’s most vocal human rights organisations. The
Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial” (ADC Memorial) and the Memorial Human
Rights Center[3] were
among the first human rights organisations officially declared as “foreign
agents”, in April and May 2014. While the Ministry of Justice’s register of
“foreign agents” already includes hundreds of organisations, other NGOs
preferred to shut down rather to be stigmatized as a “foreign agent”.
Forty-nine
Russian NGOs, including Ekozaschita!, have an application pending before the
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (Application No. 9988/13[4]), based on the claim that that the Foreign Agent Law violates
many universally recognised human rights, including freedom of speech,
expression and association, and that the “political activity” criteria is
arbitrarily implemented. On July 5, 2017, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner
for Human Rights submitted a third-party intervention to ECtHR regarding this
application, under which the latter endorses the conclusions of Ekozaschita![5].
The
Observatory strongly condemns the judicial harassment of Ms. Alexandra Koroleva
and Ekozaschita!, which seems to be only aimed at sanctioning them for their
human rights activities. The Observatory calls on the Russian authorities to
immediately end any act of harassment, including at the judicial level, against
Ms. Alexandra Koroleva and Ekozaschita!, and all the human rights defenders in
the country. The Observatory also urges the authorities to immediately repeal
the Foreign Agent Law.
Actions
requested:
Please
write to the authorities of Russia asking them to:
i.
Immediately and unconditionally end any act of harassment, including at the
judicial level, against Ms. Alexandra Koroleva and Ekozaschita!, as well as
against all human rights defenders in the country;
ii. Ensure
in all circumstances that human rights defenders are able to carry out their
legitimate activities without any hindrance and fear of reprisals;
iii. Repeal
the 2012 Foreign Agent Law;
iv. Comply
with all the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights
Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular
its Articles 1 and 12.2;
v. Ensure
in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in
accordance with international human rights standards and international
instruments ratified by the Russian Federation, particularly with respect to
business activities.
Addresses:
·
Mr. Vladimir Putin,
President of the Russian Federation, Fax: + 7 495 606 3602; + 7 495 625 3581
·
Mr. Dimitri Medvedev,
Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Twitter: @MedvedevRussia
·
Mr. Sergueï
Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Fax: + 7 495 644
2203
·
Permanent Mission of
the Russian Federation to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Fax: +41
22 734 40 44, E-mail: mission.russian@vtxnet.ch
·
Embassy of the Russian
Federation in Brussels, Belgium. Fax: +32 2 374 26 13. E-mail: mission.russian@vtxnet.ch
·
Permanent
Representation of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe, France. Fax:
(+33) (0) 3 88 24 19 74. Email: russia.coe@orange.fr
Please also write to
the diplomatic representations of the Russian Federation in your respective
countries.
***
Paris-Geneva, July 2,
2019
Kindly inform us of any
action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.
The
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was
created in 1997 by FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The
objective of this programme is to prevent or remedy situations of repression
against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism
implemented by international civil society.
[1] Ecodefence! is one of Russia’s oldest
environmental NGO, founded in 1990 in Kaliningrad. The organisation works to inform and involve citizens in environmental and
social activity through the organizing of educational events, environmental
campaigns, non-violent direct actions and the spreading of environmental
information. For Ecodefence!, the rights to a healthy environment and
information are fundamental rights that must be available for all citizens.
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