Orlov: court that fined chair of "Civil Assistance" went beyond the legal sphere

The court ruling to fine Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Committee "Civil Assistance", is beyond the legal sphere, said Oleg Orlov, a member of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

On June 18 Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the Committee "Civil Assistance", which implements humanitarian and educational projects in Northern Caucasus, was fined by the court by 2000 roubles for breaking Article 17.7 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation "Failure to fulfil the legitimate demands of the prosecutor". Gannushkina herself refused to plead guilty and expressed her intention to appeal against the ruling.

According to the prosecution, Gannushkina "had intentionally failed to provide the requested documents on financial activities of her organization and its funding sources to the prosecutor's office." However, according to Svetlana, this formulation is wrong: the prosecution has asked not for financial but other documents, she said in her comment to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports. Besides, in her opinion, the prosecutor's request for documents was obviously impossible, as some of the requested documents were at the moment at the Ministry of Justice.

In the opinion of Lev Ponomaryov, the executive director of the Movement "For Human Rights", the ultimate goal of checking the above Committee is to force it to get registered as a foreign agent.