Watchdog

CHEBOKSARY, Russia -- The Supreme Court of Russia's Chuvashia region has reversed the acquittal of RFE/RL correspondent Darya Komarova in a case regarding her coverage of a protest rally.

Judge Andrei Golubev on June 22 ruled that the decision of the Lenin district court to acquit Komarova must be nullified and the case sent for retrial. It is not clear why the acquittal was reversed.

Komarova said after the hearing that the judge had questions regarding the absence of the date and registration number on her assignment papers to cover the rally.

"The judge also raised the issue of the accreditation of reporters working for foreign media outlets in general," Komarova said.

Komarova, a correspondent of the Idel.Realities project of RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, was charged earlier this year with taking part in three unsanctioned rallies in Chuvashia's capital, Cheboksary -- two in January, when demonstrators protested the arrest of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny in Moscow, and one in August 2020.

The Lenin district court ruled that Komarova was not a participant in the rallies but was covering the demonstrations as a reporter.

Chuvashia's Interior Ministry appealed the acquittals, but the lower court's acquittals of Komarova regarding her coverage of the rallies on January 23 and January 31 came into force earlier and therefore only the ruling on the rally in August was taken to the Supreme Court.

"The continued legal harassment of RFE/RL journalist Darya Komarova on manufactured charges is unacceptable. The court previously acquitted Darya, agreeing that she was a properly credentialed reporter on assignment," RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in reaction to the decision.

"This is just the latest indication that the Russian authorities are not serious about allowing independent journalists to do their jobs."

The jailed former executive director of the pro-democracy Open Russia movement has been fined for failing to provide details of a group he established in 2017 that was added to the "foreign agents" registry.

A court in St. Petersburg on June 23 fined Andrei Pivovarov 50,000 rubles ($685) and his organization, Open Petersburg, 150,000 rubles ($2,050).

Pivovarov was detained in late May and placed in pretrial detention for two months after he was removed from a Warsaw-bound plane in St. Petersburg.

He said earlier that in December the Justice Ministry labeled the Open Petersburg educational group that he established in 2017 as a "foreign agent."

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Russia's so-called "foreign agent" legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," and to submit to audits.

Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL.

On June 2, a court in the southern city of Krasnodar ruled that Pivovarov should be held for two months after he was accused of publishing a post on social media supporting a local election candidate last year on behalf of Open Russia, which was labeled an "undesirable" organization in 2017.

Days after Pivovarov's arrest, on June 7, the former chairman of Open Russia, Aleksandr Solovyov, left Russia for Ukraine, saying he feared for his safety.

Open Russia was financed by Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who moved to London after spending 10 years in prison in Russia on charges widely seen as political revenge for challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin's rule.

The organization associated with Pivovarov was based in Russia and no longer legally connected with the London-based group with the same name that ended operations in 2017.

Leaders of the Russian-based Open Russia dissolved the group in late May after it was designated an "undesirable" organization in order to protect its supporters from further "harassment" by the Russian authorities.

The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in May 2015, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that squeezed many nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that received funding from foreign sources -- mainly from Europe and the United States.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax