Five criminal cases opened against director of Ecodefense Aleksandra Korolyova
On 19 June 2019, the environmental rights organisation “Ecodefense” issued a public statement on the five criminal cases opened against its director Aleksandra Korolyova on charges of “malicious failure to comply with a court order”. The charges are linked to the organisation’s non-compliance with the discriminatory requirements of the “foreign agents law”.
Aleksandra Korolyova is an environmental rights defender, the co-founder and the current director of Ecodefense, one of the oldest environmental rights organisations in Russia. Ecodefense works in Moscow, Kaliningrad and Kuzbass to protect the right to a clean and healthy environment, mitigate the negative impacts of coal mining, nuclear power plants and nuclear waste import, as well as to provide environmental education. 
On 19 June 2019, the environmental rights organisation “Ecodefense” issued a public statement on the five criminal cases opened against its director Aleksandra Korolyova on charges of “malicious failure to comply with a court order”. The charges are linked to the organisation’s non-compliance with the discriminatory requirements of the “foreign agents law”.
Aleksandra Korolyova is an environmental rights defender, the co-founder and the current director of Ecodefense, one of the oldest environmental rights organisations in Russia. Ecodefense works in Moscow, Kaliningrad and Kuzbass to protect the right to a clean and healthy environment, mitigate the negative impacts of coal mining, nuclear power plants and nuclear waste import, as well as to provide environmental education.
On 30 May 2019, an investigator of the Federal Bailiffs Service in Kaliningrad opened five criminal cases against the director of Ecodefense Aleksandra Korolyova on charges of “malicious failure to comply with a court order”. Three of the cases are linked to the unpaid administrative fines that the organisation was issued with due to its “failure to provide information of an NGO performing the functions of a foreign agent”. The other two cases were opened as a result of the organisation’s failure to pay the administrative fines for not submitting reports to the Ministry of Justice as required by the “foreign agents law”. According to the investigator, paying the administrative fines is part of Aleksandra Korolyova’s official duties as the organisation’s director. The offence of “malicious failure to comply with a court order” is punishable with up to two years in prison. The human rights defender had to leave the country and is currently seeking asylum in a foreign state.
In July 2014, the Ministry of Justice registered Ecodefense as a foreign agent after its successful campaign against the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Kaliningrad Region. Ecodefense refused to comply with the discriminatory requirements towards organisations labelled as foreign agents, as its members believed that this status had been wrongly assigned to their organisation. Ecodefense is currently appealing the decision of the Ministry of Justice at the European Court of Human Rights.
The “foreign agents law” entered into force on 20 November 2012, introducing a number of restrictive amendments to the Law on Non-commercial Organisations. According to these amendments, the status of a “foreign agent” should be assigned to organisations receiving funding from abroad and participating in any political activities. A number of human rights organisations have been registered as “foreign agents”, which has significantly limited their activities due to a number of discriminatory requirements, such as additional reporting and obligatory references to the “foreign agent” status in any public documents.
Front Line Defenders is seriously concerned about the five criminal cases opened against the director of Ecodefense Aleksandra Korolyova as they are believed to be a direct result of the organisation’s peaceful and legitimate work on the protection of environmental rights. Front Line Defenders is also worried about the continuous use of the “foreign agents law” to curtail the peaceful and legitimate activities of human rights organisations in Russia.
