Team 29 Announces Its Disbandment Amid Government Harassment

Team 29, an independent project of lawyers and journalists, announced the termination of its activities. This is stated in the message, hosted in the project’s Telegram channel.

“On Friday, Roskomnadzor, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, blocked the website of Team 29. We have read the notification. It follows from it that the Prosecutor General’s Office identifies Team 29 with an NGO Společnost Svobody Informace registered in the Czech Republic, included in the list of undesirable organizations. We disagree with this. The conclusions of the Prosecutor General’s Office contradict the facts and the law, they are arbitrary and far-fetched. Team 29 has no relationship with the Czech NGO. Lawyers will challenge the identification, but right now we cannot ignore the position of the siloviki, ”writes Team 29.

The project’s lawyers believe that the next step of the authorities could be criminal prosecution of both Team 29 members and its supporters: “everyone who supported us, collaborated with us, participated in humanitarian and media projects”. Changes in the Criminal Code, which came into force in July this year, allow for such a development of events.

“In these circumstances, the continuation of Team 29’s activities poses a direct and clear threat to the safety of a large number of people, and we cannot ignore this risk. We are making a difficult decision to terminate the activities of Team 29. Lawyers and lawyers will continue to work in the cases of their clients exclusively in their personal capacity, if the clients do not refuse their help in this situation, ”the statement says.

“Team 29” closes all media projects and deletes the archive: “all (!) Texts, memos, reports, investigations, clarifications of laws, stories of political prisoners, court documents, interviews, podcasts, a literary project, posts in social networks – the existence of this content on the Internet can be qualified as “distribution of materials from an undesirable organization” according to the same logic by which our site was blocked ”.

Lawyers recommend to everyone who once shared the materials of Team 29 to remove direct links and reposts. “They can be regarded as participation in the activities of an undesirable organization. Let’s clarify: any mentions of Team 29 or posts with your attitude to what is happening do not pose any threat. If you want to speak out, you have every right to do so, ”the human rights activists explain.

Teams 29 recurring payment subscriptions will also be canceled. “With the help of a million rubles, collected by you for the equipment instead of the one seized during the searches, we will compensate for the damage of the already former members of the Team: Ivan Pavlov will report this in his telegram channel (https://t.me/kanalsobakipavlova). We invite you to subscribe to it if you have not yet subscribed – from now on it is the only platform available to former K29 members, ”the project participants report.

They also remind that the persecution of the lawyer and the former head of Team 29, Ivan Pavlov, continues. He is under investigation in a criminal case, and the next trial will take place on July 19. You can show solidarity with Ivan Pavlov and the former members of Team 29 by signing petition on Change.org.

The lawyer was accused of disclosing data from a preliminary investigation (Article 310 of the Criminal Code) in the case of his client journalist and adviser to the head of Roscosmos Ivan Safronov. Pavlov stated that he considers this to be revenge for his principled position on a number of cases that the FSB is investigating.

Team 29 specialized in protecting persons involved in criminal cases related to information, including state secrets, as well as treason.

Since April 26, Pavlov and his colleagues from Team 29 have defended the Anti-Corruption Foundation and Navalny’s headquarters created by Alexei Navalny. Let us remind you that the Moscow City Court recognized them as extremist organizations.

Lawyer Ivan Pavlov believes that the Russian authorities “have done everything to criminalize the activities and even the very name of Team 29”. “But Team 29 has never been a formal organization, it has always been a collective of like-minded people. And the main thing in it was people: the members of the Team themselves, and everyone who supported and sympathized with it, and journalists with human rights defenders who worked side by side with us. Therefore, the main thing now is to save people, because people are most important, people are thoughts, actions, values ​​and aspirations. If there are people, then there will be new ideas and new projects, ”the lawyer explained. Message on his behalf published in Pavlov’s Telegram channel.

According to him, each of the former K29 members “will continue their activities in their personal capacity.” “We are not used to starting everything from scratch,” concluded Ivan Pavlov.