A Moscow engineer was fined for mentioning OVD-Info without an “foreign agent” label. What is wrong with this ruling?

A Moscow engineer was fined for mentioning OVD-Info without an “foreign agent” label. What is wrong with this ruling?

A court in Zelenograd found Sergey Pshenichnikov, who had previously been sentenced in absentia in a case over wartime “fakes,” guilty of mentioning OVD-Info on Odnoklassniki without indicating its “foreign agent” status.

The ruling is dated April 21. In it, the court simultaneously cites legislation on “foreign agents,” the media, and extremism. Moreover, the text states that OVD-Info is an “undesirable or prohibited organization,” although that is not true: we have not been declared an “undesirable” organization, and the concept of a “prohibited” organization is not provided for by law at all.

Here is how a lawyer working with OVD-Info comments on this ruling:

The law (Part 2.1, Article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) provides NO liability for private individuals. The article under which this ruling was issued concerns the dissemination of information about “foreign agents” in the media and media materials, not in personal posts by social media users.

Besides that, it is completely unclear why the judge refers to the law on countering extremism and writes that OVD-Info is an “undesirable or prohibited organization.”

At the time this ruling was issued, our materials could be shared and we could be mentioned without any labels at all. Now there is an obligation to state that OVD-Info is an extremist organization and that our activities are prohibited (Part 2, Article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, where liability is предусмотрена in part for private individuals).

▶️ So is it even safe to interact with you now?

After OVD-Info was added to the so-called Rosfinmonitoring list of terrorists and extremists as an “extremist” organization, the Russian authorities may hold liable any person who continues to interact with OVD-Info or support us.

At the same time, there are ways of interacting that we consider safe under the current circumstances, despite our already “extremist” status. We explained them in more detail here.