On August 5, 2013 preliminary hearings were held in Leninsky district court of Saint Petersburg on the administrative case of the procurator of Admiralty district against Charitable private organization Antidiscrimination center \u00abMemorial\u00bb (ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb). This is a completely new legal practice of the procurator’s office in its attempts to officially list at least a single NGO in the still empty register of \u00abforeign agents\u00bb. <\/i><\/p>\n
Procurator appealed to court in the interests of \u00abundefined group of persons\u00bb supposedly interested in listing ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb in the register of NGOs serving as foreign agents. Procurator’s appeal states that ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb receives foreign financing and is involved in political activities because it had prepared and provided to the UN Committee against torture a human rights report concerning arbitrary actions of police aimed against vulnerable groups, in which a critical evaluation was given to cases of ethnic profiling, violation of migrants’ rights and the rights of Roma people by police officers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier the procurator’s office had initiated a case on administrative violation of Article 19.34 (sections 1 and 2) of the Code on administrative violations against ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb and its director. The claim was based on criticism of the report \u00abRoma people, migrants, activists \u2014 victims of police arbitrariness\u00bb, which had been prepared by ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb for the 49th session of the UN Committee against torture and had been presented in Geneva on November 9, 2012 (that is before the introduction of changes into the law on NGOs which states that \u00abpolitical activities\u00bb of NGOs registered as foreign agents is a violation). So far the procurator’s office failed to establish ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb’s responsibility for violation of Article 19.34 in courts, although in Ausut 2013 a new appeal was presented by the procurator’s office\u00a0 after the courts of first and second appeal refused to consider the case against human rights defenders in essence.<\/p>\n
ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb doesn’t accept the justice of the claimns made by the procurator’s office and the legality of the case in the interests of an undefined group of persons. Representative of ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb has stated its arguments in court. Firstly, it is not clear whose rights and liberties the procurator’s office defends as an \u00abundefined group of persons\u00bb and how these persons suffer from the fact that ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb is not registered as a foreign agent. Secondly, ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb is not involved in political activities, but acts in the interests of vulnerable groups of people, defending their rights, including provision of human rights reports for the UN Committee against torture, which is in full accord with the obligations of the Russian Federation regarding cooperation with international organizations and observation of international norms. Besides that registration as an NGO acting as a foreign agent is not required for charitable organizations, which ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb is both in form (ADC \u00abMemorial\u00bb is a private charitable organization) and the nature of its activities, i.e. free charitable assistance to most vulnerable persons, who are victims of discrimination.<\/p>\n
Next hearing of Leninsky district court is scheduled for September 23, 2013