Censorship and suppression of Russian society. The European Court's «harshest» ruling on the complaint by Russian foreign agents

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01 November 2024

НАСТОЯЩИЙ МАТЕРИАЛ (ИНФОРМАЦИЯ) ПРОИЗВЕДЕН, РАСПРОСТРАНЕН И (ИЛИ) НАПРАВЛЕН ИНОСТРАННЫМ АГЕНТОМ «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» ЛИБО КАСАЕТСЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» | 18+

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights adopted its judgment on 107 complaints by Russian foreign agents. Among them were the head of the Crew Against Torture Sergey Babinets, political scientist Yekaterina Shulman, journalist Yuriy Dud, the organizations «Public Verdict», «Memorial», «Nasiliyu.Net Centre» and others. For the Court, this is the first large-scale and detailed ruling that concerns so-called foreign agents. The Court pointed out that Russia repeatedly worsens the situation of “foreign agents” in the country. Here are some of the ECHR’s conclusions:

  • The new restrictions create the impression that foreign agents pose a threat to the society, and they should be treated with suspicion and kept away from important areas of public life.
  • The term foreign agent is still misleading, as if agents are acting on someone’s orders. However, in none of the cases did the Russian authorities prove that the applicants were under foreign control or acted in foreign interests.
  • Many of those who applied to the ECHR were declared foreign agents for reposting materials from other foreign agents. One of the applicants was held accountable for not labeling an obituary.
  • The labeling required of foreign agents is reminiscent of the labeling of certain groups, as authoritarian regimes of the past did.
  • Foreign agent laws are aimed at discouraging people from participating in public debate, rather than achieving national security goals.
  • Foreign agent legislation creates an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust.

The commentary of Olga Sadovskaya, a lawyer of the Crew Against Torture: «The Court indicated that the labeling affected the reputation of all applicants and seriously reduced their ability not only to engage in professional activities, but also to lead a normal personal life outside the “Dom-2” reality show format. The ban on practicing entire professions, according to the Court, is literally draconian and abnormal in a democratic society. Another question is whether we still have a democratic society and State?.. However, in any case, these values were previously declared by Russia itself. It would be probably acceptable if such shameful restrictions were imposed in connection with some real state of affairs, when a person or organization has some foreign contracting authority of their agent activity. But this is an initially false formulation, because these “authorities from abroad” do not exist. Otherwise, they would have already been named by Russia a hundred times

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