![]() Source: HRO.org (info) On 28 May 2013, Memorial Human Rights Centre filed a suit with the Zamoskvoretsky district court in Moscow, in which it appealed against the demand by the Moscow prosecutor’s office that the NGO register as a ‘foreign agent.’ At the end of March the Moscow prosecutor’s office carried out an inspection of the Memorial Human Rights Centre concerning its “compliance with current legislation”. Memorial repeatedly protested against the unlawfulness of the inspection and contested the actions of the prosecutor’s office in court (see more details). On 29 April, based on the results of the inspection, the prosecutor’s office issued a notice to Memorial ordering the organization to remove all alleged violations of the law on NGOs. According to the prosecutor’s office, the Memorial Human Rights Centre is engaged in so-called “political activities”, which in combination with receiving funding from abroad, requires enrolment on the register of foreign agents. In its suit the Memorial Human Rights Centre points out the lack of grounds for the prosecutor’s office’s conclusions on the NGO’s activities, and the unreliability of the information on which the measures taken by the prosecutor’s office are based. Furthermore, Memorial holds that the law on foreign agents should not be implemented since it violates an organization’s right to freedom of association and freedom of expression. |