Press Release, 5.03.2022

Photo: Svetlana Gannushkina / Photo by the Yabloko party Press Service

Federal Security Service (FSB) officers came to the Civic Assistance Committee on 4 March. Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Committee and a member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko, said that the server and hard drive were taken away during the search, and she was taken for interrogation, which will continue on 9 March (after public holidays in Russia).

According to the Telegram channel “Refugees and the media. Civic Assistance”, the search in the Civic Assistance Committee lasted almost five hours. Investigators seized the server where the data of the accounting department and the date of those who applied for aid in the Committee are stored in encrypted form. It is noted that the search was formally carried out as part of the investigation of a criminal case against a former employee of the Committee Bakhrom Khamroyev. According to Svetlana Gannushkina, Khamroyev stopped working in the Committee 17 years ago.

The search in the Civic Assistance Committee was carried out by FSB officers with the support of the riot police OMON. During the search, all the employees of the Committee were locked in the waiting room.

“Our employees repeatedly demanded a lawyer, but the investigators refused. They did not provide any justification. The lawyers standing at the door of the office were also denied access,” the employees of Committee say.

After the search was over, Svetlana Gannushkina, together with lawyer Ivan Novikov, went to the FSB Department for Moscow and the Moscow region. She is summoned to more questioning on 9 March.

It should be noted that the Civic Assistance Committee provides assistance to refugees and migrants. In 2015, it was included in the register of NGOs – foreign agents. At the end of 2021, the Moscow authorities dissolved the leasehold contract with the Committee, which had been in effect since 2011. Several days ago the organisation managed to move to a new office.