What is the international human rights organization “Agora”

The Prosecutor General’s Office declared undesirable activities of the Law Sofia Foundation operating in Bulgaria, which includes the international human rights organization Agora. What this structure did – in the material “Kommersant”.

Interregional association “Agora” was established by the Kazan Human Rights Center, the Chita Human Rights Center and the Chuvash Human Rights Organization “Shield and Sword” on April 28, 2005. She was engaged in providing legal assistance to civil activists, NGOs, victims of illegal actions of police officers. The headquarters of the association was in Kazan. From the moment of its foundation, the head of the organization was the lawyer Pavel Chikov.

Agora lawyers, in particular, worked at the trial for “swamp business”represented the interests of the participants Pussy Riot Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (recognized as a foreign agent) and Maria Alyokhina, a Ukrainian director accused of terrorism Oleg Sentsovarrested for setting fire to the door of the FSB building on the Lubyanka of the artist Peter Pavlensky.

In 2014 the Ministry of Justice turned on “Agora” in the register of NGOs acting as foreign agents (conducting political activities and receiving foreign funding). In 2015, the international human rights group “Agora” was created, which actually continued the activities of the Kazan association. In 2016, the Kazan branch was liquidated at the suit of the Ministry of Justice.

Since 2021, the organization has covered its activities in the Telegram channel. In September 2022, Agora created a Telegram bot that answered a question about recruits. March 23, 2023 Ministry of Justice introduced to the list of foreign agents and the head of the organization, Pavel Chikov, for “distributing false information about decisions made by public authorities and participating in the creation and dissemination of materials by foreign agents.”

At the beginning of 2021, the organization employed 50 lawyers and lawyers who handled over 300 cases in most regions of Russia. Permanent legal teams worked in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Stavropol, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Lipetsk, Chita, as well as in Helsinki, Sofia and London.