A meeting was held in the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow to consider the complaint of a political prisoner, co-chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Center Oleg Orlov regarding his inclusion in the register of “foreign agents”.

Currently, Oleg Orlov is in a pre-trial detention center. “I am now behind prison walls, bars, barbed wire. Am I really not protected from harmful foreign influence now?! To doubt this is even somehow insulting to the Federal Penitentiary Service, in whose hands I am now. Isn’t this fact a basis for excluding me from the register of “foreign agents”?! At least for the time I'm here. Once I get out of here, you can turn me back on,” the political prisoner shared.

According to him, in today's Russia almost all independent media, with a few exceptions, and honest journalists end up on this register. “I said everything. I propose to include all citizens of the Russian Federation in the register, except those who are behind bars,” the human rights activist joked.

According to the lawyer, the decision of the Ministry of Justice to include Oleg Orlov in the register is unfounded and illegal. The defense noted that the department’s decision lacked specifics: Orlov was recognized as a “foreign agent” because he ran Facebook, participated in rallies, and also gave interviews to other “foreign agents.”

“The plaintiff’s inclusion in the register of ‘foreign agents’ did not pursue a legitimate purpose and disproportionately limited his constitutional rights to freedom of thought and speech and respect for private life, and also violated the prohibition of disparagement of human dignity and discrimination,” the lawyer stated. However, the court left these arguments unsatisfied.

Oleg Orlov was recognized as a foreign agent on February 2. On February 27, the Golovinsky Court of Moscow sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison under the article on “repeated discrediting” of the army. The human rights activist was tried for an anti-war article in which he called the Putin regime fascist.