Source: HRO.org (info)

• Таtаrstan   Моscow city & Moscow regioin   Human rights defenders   Right of association   Harassment of activists 

On 10 February 2016 the Supreme Court of Tatarstan ruled, in response to a suit brought by the local department of the Ministry of Justice, that the Agora Human Rights Association should be closed down ‘in connection with repeated or gross violation of the laws or other legal acts.’ The main ‘violation’ of which Agora was accused was refusal to label its publications with the shameful epithet ‘foreign agent.’

One of the best known and most effective human rights organizations in Russia, working to protect victims of illegal actions by official bodies (including police torture) has been closed down. Agora had not received foreign funding for a long time, and had even submitted an application to be removed from the ‘foreign agent register’.

The crackdown against Agora demonstrates just one more time that the meaning and purpose of the ‘law on agents’ is not at all that of protecting the state and society from mythical ‘foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Russia’. The purpose is to ensure impunity for those who occupy positions of authority in state bodies, and to exacerbate the defencelessness of citizens.