Wednesday is a little Friday. 22 natural persons who entered the register of “foreign agents” in one day

On September 29, the Ministry of Justice included in the register of “foreign agents” the non-profit organizations “Nizhny Novgorod Center of German and European Culture” and “Center for Gender Studies”, as well as the human rights organization “OVD-Info”, the organization of legal aid “Zona Prava”, as well as LLC “ZP” – founder of the independent publication Mediazona.

In a conversation with The Insider, Mediazona editor Dmitry Treshchanin stressed that the decision of the Ministry of Justice did not surprise the staff of the publication.

“No one doubted that sooner or later all independent media would receive this status. We ourselves came up with the theory of “foreign agent Fridays” at Mediazon, and every Friday until the evening at F5 we updated the list of the Ministry of Justice, expecting to see ourselves in it, of course. We understood that the elections The Insider> – this is not a cut-off that after the elections it will not stop. The very first Wednesday turned out to be a small Friday. Not only have they contributed, but also across our theory. This is probably the most unpleasant thing now, because, in general, de facto, we understood that we would be on this list, if not this month, then next. There is no shock or disappointment. The Ministry of Justice does not warn anyone, nor did it warn us. All this is carried out in the mode “Read about yourself in the news”. Unfortunately, we are rolling out the die right now, because, naturally, it was ready. We will live with her, what can you do. As the practice of colleagues has shown, life is possible with her, ”Treshchanin said.

In addition, the register was replenished with the names of 22 people, including the leaders and coordinators of the Golos movement, the publisher of Mediazona, as well as Petr Verzilov and its editor-in-chief Sergei Smirnov. All newly minted individuals – “foreign agents” – in the collection of The Insider.

Sergey Smirnov

Editor-in-chief of the online publication Mediazona since its inception in 2014. A number of his publications were nominated for the “Editorial Board” award. On February 4, 2021, Smirnov was arrested for 25 days for retweeting a picture containing a joke about Smirnov himself, as well as indicating the time of the rally in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Later, the term of arrest was reduced to 15 days.