Domestic violence NGO fined for violation of Foreign Agents Law
Organisation Nasiliu.net (Violence:no) was fined 300 000 roubles for their violation of the law on foreign agents
Perovsky District Court of Moscow found the centre Nasiliu.net (now ruled to be included on the register of organisations performing the functions of a foreign agent by the Ministry of Justice) guilty of violating the procedure for the activities of an NGO foreign agent.
14/04/2021
The court found the organisation guilty under Part 1 of Article 19.34 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. Lawyer Kirill Koroteev, representing the interests of the organisation, announced in the courtroom: “This is, in fact, a fine, simply due to the fact that the organisation did not enter itself onto the register of foreign agents, which, of course, it would not do, since it does not consider itself a foreign agent.”
The court dismissed the claim of Nasiliu.net against the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice claims the centre acted as a co-author for the draft law “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence” and participated in its promotion. The draft was submitted to the State Duma on September 28, 2016: almost two years before the registration of Nasiliu.net. In addition, the Ministry interpreted a petition demanding the adoption of the law and an appeal to citizens to “influence the promotion of the bill” as political activity, as well as judging several news stories about LGBT individuals and the “persecution of feminist NGOs” to be inappropriately political, and a list of meetings attended by the Director of the centre, Anna Rivina, to be unacceptable.
“The centre is charged with certain actions that were carried out before the creation of the organisation. For some reason, the centre is now held responsible for the action of Duma deputies and members of the Federation Council, even before its existence,” Kirill Koroteev stated.
According to Koroteev, the centre plans to appeal the fine to the Moscow City Council within the next 10 days.
Nasiliu.net was judged to be a foreign agent on December 29, 2020. In March 2021, the court rejected the organisation’s claim of unjustified inclusion onto the list of foreign agents.
