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Amnesty International's Moscow Office Reopened


Amnesty International announced on November 3 that Moscow's office had been sealed, a door broken, locks changed, and the alarm system switched off.
Amnesty International announced on November 3 that Moscow's office had been sealed, a door broken, locks changed, and the alarm system switched off.

The director of Amnesty International's branch in Russia says his staff has returned to the Moscow office that they were evicted from earlier in November.

Sergei Nikitin said on November 18 that he signed a new lease agreement with the Moscow property department, after which they were allowed to return to the office, which had been sealed for 16 days.

Nikitin added that the sides agreed that the eviction was the result of a "technical mix-up" and that Amnesty International did not owe any payments on the old lease.

Nikitin posted photographs of the staff returning to the office on his Facebook page.

On November 3, Nikitin announced that the organization's Moscow office had been sealed, a door broken, locks changed, and the alarm system switched off.

The Moscow property department claimed the group owed rent, which the London-based Amnesty denied.

Nongovernmental organizations that are critical of the Kremlin have come under pressure from the Russian authorities since the country adopted a law in 2012 requiring all organizations that receive foreign funding to register as "foreign agents."

With reporting by TASS and Interfax
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