ENVIRONMENTAL WATCH ON NORTH CAUCASUS (EWNC)
July 22, 2013

This weekend, the Environmental Watch on North Caucasus received an official warning from the prosecutors not to continue operations unless it registers as a “foreign agent”. However the way this warning was delivered harks of spy games of the Soviet era, when secret police invented fake personas to infiltrate groups they considered harmful.

One of EWNC activists in the Krasnodar region town of Belorechensk received a telephone call from a “concerned citizen” who introduced himself as Alexei Yermakov. This person said he has important information about the local waste landfill site, which he needs to personally deliver to EWNC coordinator Andrei Rudomakha.

Mr. “Yermakov” then called Andrei Rudomakha repeatedly to arrange a meeting, finally meeting him at a bus station, where he revealed that he is in fact an operative with the anti-extremist department of Russian police.

The operative handed a letter from the prosecutor to Andrei Rudomakha, and filmed him on video as Rudomakha read this letter. It remaned unclear why an officer of the police is carrying letters on behalf of the Russian prosecutors, who are supposed to be separate from police.

The prosecutor warning, which used similar wording as many letters already sent to Russian NGOs which have forced some of them to shut down, alleges that EWNC’s goals include influencing government policies in the sphere of environmental protection, that the NGO has staged rallies and demonstrations against environmental degradation, and is therefore engaged in political activity. Furthermore, EWNC has received grants from foreign foundations for its work to protect the Kuban Delta, and compiled reports regarding environmental violations in Olympic Sochi, and is therefore “required to register as a foreign agent,” according to the warning.

EWNC considers this harrassment an attempt to impede our work to expose harmful government policies and illegal development projects in the Caucasus, namely the construction of the elite resort “Lunnaya Polyana” in the UNESCO-protected zone, the violation of regulations and human rights in construction of Olympic venues and roads in Sochi, and the illegal dachas belonging to high officials on the public shore of the Black Sea.

In late March, police and prosecutors already came to inspect the offices of EWNC in Maikop, looking through documents and emails as part of the nation-wide campaign by the authorities to prosecute independent non-governmental groups under the recent controversial “foreign agent” bill.

We will appeal this official warning, delivered under disguise of a concerned citizen and we sincerely hope that the current “foreign agent” hysteria will sooner or later end, instead focusing the attentions of prosecutors and law enforcement officers on protecting the rights of citizens and punishing the real offenders of Russian laws.

Letter from the prosecutors of Maikop to the Environmental Watch on North Caucasus

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