The Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit with the Moscow City Court to liquidate the Sova information and analytical center. This was reported in the telegram channel of the center.
The corresponding lawsuit was submitted by the department to the court on March 10, the reason for it was the results of an unscheduled inspection of Sova. “The main violation, as previously in the cases with the Moscow Helsinki Group and the organization “Man and the Law”, was recognized as holding events outside the region of registration (in our case, Moscow) or participating in such events. Only this claim is stated in the lawsuit, ”the message on the center’s website says. The Ministry of Justice counted 24 Owl events outside of Moscow over the past three years.
“We see that the claim of violation of territoriality is applied purely selectively. As, however, and many other norms. We also see the case MHG and the argumentation of the Ministry of Justice, which the court agreed in that case. But I still cannot recognize such an absurd literalism in understanding the norm of the law on territorial restrictions for public organizations as acceptable, ”Sova director Alexander Verkhovsky commented on the news about the lawsuit in a conversation with Mediazona.
The Ministry of Justice began an unscheduled inspection of the organization in January of this year — the reason for its conduct was the appeal of the Moscow prosecutor's office. In the audit report, the Ministry of Justice indicated three violations, but two of them were formal, which Owl later drew attention to, so they were not included in the lawsuit on the liquidation of the organization.
The ministry issued an order to conduct an audit in November. A few months earlier, pro-government telegram channels and Russian television aired stories criticizing the organization — in publications, Sova was accused of Russophobia, opposition to traditional values and the desire to «influence the domestic agenda in Russia.»
In September, the public movement «Veterans of Russia» asked to liquidate the «Owl» — the chairman of the movement sent complaints about the center to the Investigative Committee, the presidential administration, the FSB and the State Duma. Earlier, as TASS wrote, it was on the denunciation of “Veterans of Russia” against the employees of the “International Memorial” that a criminal case was opened on the rehabilitation of Nazism. includes the problems of nationalism and xenophobia, the relationship between religion and society, as well as the practice of applying anti-extremist legislation in Russia. In particular, the center records cases of unlawful application of anti-extremist legislation.
In 2016, Sova was included in the register of «foreign agents». The director of the center, Alexander Verkhovsky, was a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights until November 2022.