HRC "Memorial" will appeal against the demand of the MPO to get registered as foreign agent

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" has received from the Moscow Prosecutor's Office (MPO) a presentation saying that the HRC is acting as a foreign agent without being registered as such at the authorized body and demanding to eliminate - within a month - the violation of federal law. The leaders of the HRC "Memorial" believe that conclusions of the MPO are wrong and plan to appeal against them.

Let us remind you that the off-the-schedule inspection of the HRC "Memorial" was launched by the MPO with attraction of experts from the Ministry of Justice and taxation bodies on March 26. On March 29, the MPO was provided with the requested documents. At the same time, the members of the "Memorial" found the very decision of the MPO to conduct the inspection itself and the actions of the inspectors illegal; and on April 8, turned to the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court with an appeal against the actions of the MPO.

As a result of the inspection of the HRC "Memorial", the MPO has concluded that the HRC had violated the requirements of point "b", Article 2 of the Federal Law of 12 January 1996 No. 7-FZ "On Non-Profit Organizations" that defines the notion of "a non-profit organization acting as a foreign agent", and demanded that the "Memorial" get registered as a foreign agent.

The MPO's presentation to the HRC "Memorial" was received yesterday, on April 30, the Centre says in the statement posted on its website.

Special attention of the inspectors, as it follows from the presentation itself, also posted on the website of the HRC "Memorial", was attracted by the programmes that assume monitoring of politically motivated administrative detention and criminal repression. The document makes accent on the project "OVD-Info", launched in December 2011 by a group of journalists, who a holding the monitoring of political arrests conducted at public events.

The MPO has established that in February 2013 the project was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (USA) within the programme of the HRC "Memorial" named "Raising Awareness of Russian Society about Politically Motivated Arrests and Detentions in the Russian Federation", and has already received 30,000 US dollars on implementation of the project.

"Having emerged as an informal association of citizens, from February 1, 2013, the 'OVD-Info' cooperates with the HRC 'Memorial' by implementing a project to monitor detentions in Russian regions. From the very beginning, the 'OVD-Info' has stressed its apolitical nature by not participating in protests and not organizing them. The MPO's assertion that the work of the 'OVD-Info' under the HRC 'Memorial' is allegedly associated with the 'conduct of public events and other political activity,' is not true," said the HRC "Memorial", noting that "all the other 'proofs' of the alleged 'political activities' contained in the NPO's presentation," and the organization does not intend to recognize itself as a "foreign agent".

Alexander Cherkasov, Chairman of the Board of the HRC "Memorial", said, in his interview to the "Interfax", that the conclusions of the MPO will be challenged.