The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation entered the lead singer of the Little Big group Ilya Prusikin and the representative of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance Daria Serenko into the unified register of “foreign agents”, according to the agency’s website.
The reason for including Prusikin in the register, according to the Ministry of Justice, was that the musician “received support from foreign sources, carried out concert activities in unfriendly countries with calls to stop the SVO, disseminated false information about the activities of state authorities.”
Daria Serenko, according to the department, “raised funds in support of an unfriendly country – Ukraine, contributed to the public promotion of people participating in protest movements”, and also “promoted LGBT relations” and leads the “Feminist Anti-War Resistance”, recognized as a “foreign agent” .
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Also in the list of “foreign agents” the Ministry of Justice included the journalist of The Moscow Times Fidel Agumava, the official representative of the Dalai Lama XIV in Russia, Mongolia and the CIS countries Erdni Ombadykov and human rights activist Rafis Kashapov.
The register of “foreign agents” was replenished by two NGOs: the Digital Rights Development Fund and Philosophy of Non-Violence LLC (one of the founders of the company is musician Andrey Makarevich, also recognized in Russia as a “foreign agent”).
On December 1, 2022, the law “On Control over the Activities of Persons Under Foreign Influence” came into force in Russia. On the basis of this document, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation published a new unified register of “foreign agents”, in which at the beginning of December there were 493 positions. These are all people and organizations recognized as “foreign agents” in the ten years since the first law on “foreign agents” appeared in Russia.
The new law also allows individuals who do not have foreign funding to be recognized as “foreign agents”. Now the Ministry of Justice will be able to include in the register of “foreign agents” any Russian or foreign organizations or individuals if they receive foreign support or are under foreign influence, and also conduct political activities or collect information about Russia’s military-technical activities that “can be used against security country”.
This document also introduces a register of those who are “affiliated” with “foreign agents”. They will be recognized as individuals who were or are currently members of the “foreign agent” organization. This list will include persons who receive or have received in the past money from a “foreign agent”, even through intermediaries. At the same time, “affiliated” persons will not be subject to the restrictions established for “foreign agents”.
The new law states that the Ministry of Justice will be able to exclude a “foreign agent” from the unified register a year after the rejection of “foreign influence” or the types of activities listed in the law. At the same time, in the case of re-inclusion in the register, it will be possible to achieve an exception no sooner than after three years.
The law on “foreign agents” appeared in Russia in 2012. He allowed the Ministry of Justice to recognize non-profit organizations as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities. The criteria by which such activities are determined are not clearly defined in the law, which allows the authorities to prosecute organizations working in the field of education, culture, healthcare, ecology, and protection of human rights. Subsequently, it became possible to recognize the media and individuals as “foreign agents”.
The lawyer about the new law in the Russian Federation, according to which everyone risks becoming a “foreign agent”:
