Week-ending 12 March 2021
On 8 March 2021 Nasiliyu.Net [Насилию.Нет], a Moscow-based NGO that works to combat domestic violence and to advance LGBT rights, received an eviction notice from its landlord. On 11 March a Moscow court rejected the appeal by the organisation to have it removed from the list of ‘foreign agent’ NGOs to which it had been added three months ago. Observers note that there has been a sharp rise in domestic violence during the pandemic.
Sources:
Nasiliyu.Net on Facebook
RFE/RL, 9 March 2021: One of Russia’s leading organizations addressing domestic violence and LGBT rights, Nasiliyu.Net, is facing eviction from its Moscow office three months after being placed on Moscow’s controversial “foreign agent” list. Anna Rivina, the head of the NGO, wrote on Facebook on March 8 that the landlord had requested the group to vacate the premises within a month. Rivina said her team moved last summer into the premises, where they speak with domestic-violence victims and hold support sessions and educational events. The landlord initially requested the group to vacate the office in 10 days in early February, she said, before then giving the NGO to the end of March to leave.
The Moscow Times, 11 March 2021: Russia’s decision to label one of its leading women’s aid groups a “foreign agent” after a year when domestic violence spiked signals a widening crackdown on organizations seeking to tackle the problem, activists told The Moscow Times. The country’s Justice Ministry added Nasiliu.net — Russian for “No to Violence” — to the register formed by a 2012 law that allows any politically active individual or organization accepting funding from abroad to be labeled a foreign agent. Meanwhile, reports of domestic violence doubled after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic as millions were confined to their homes in a country already grappling with an epidemic of abuse.
RFE/RL, 11 March 2021: A court in Moscow has refused to remove Nasiliyu.net, a leading organization that addresses domestic violence and LGBT rights, from the registry of “foreign agents.” Lawyer Pavel Chikov of the Agora legal defense organization said on March 11 that the Zamoskvoretsky district court rejected Nasiliyu.net’s request to annul a Justice Ministry decision to add the group to its controversial list of organizations fulfilling the functions of a “foreign agent.” The ministry justified its move, made in December, by saying that the NGO had received foreign funding and was engaged in political activity. The NGO has denied it is politically active.
