The Moscow City Hall seizes the premises of the “Sakharov Center” because of the law on foreign agents

The Moscow City Property Department is terminating lease agreements for three premises of the Sakharov Center (recognized as a foreign agent) due to legislation on foreign agents, the organization said. The Center received a letter about this on 24 January. According to the laws on foreign agents, they cannot receive state support. The Sakharov Center rented the building where the center is located, the Exhibition Hall and an apartment on Zemlyanoy Val Street free of charge.

“The decision of the Moscow Property Committee is only an act of the executor. The reason for the eviction are amendments to the law on “foreign agents”, which came into force on the first of December last year. According to these innovations, “foreign agents” should not receive any state support. All the premises of the Center were with us on a gratuitous lease from the city, ”the statement says. message on the Sakharov Center website.

The Sakharov Center added that they carefully used the premises that were on gratuitous rent, and also preserved the archive of Andrei Sakharov’s letters, which is stored in the museum-apartment on Zemlyanoy Val. They recalled that they received the premises in 1993 and 1996.

The Sakharov Center did not specify when they should leave the premises. They explained that the center would have time to hold events for the centenary of the second wife of Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, it will be celebrated on February 15.

In 2014, the Sakharov Center was recognized as an NGO-foreign agent. This week the Attorney General’s Office acknowledged American Andrei Sakharov Foundation (“Andrei Sakharov Foundation”) unwanted. The organization was founded by Elena Bonner in 1990.

Olesya Pavlenko