On Monday, July 13, Russian police arrested opposition figure Boris Nadejdin, a candidate in the 2024 presidential elections. He announced that he will continue the signature collection campaign for the parliamentary elections on September 20.
“The police have come. I am being taken to the Dolgoprudny station” (in the Moscow region), wrote the politician on his Telegram account, who was declared a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice on Friday, according to Agerpres.
According to the Russian press, the amendment introduced in May 2024 prevents the person declared a foreign agent from running for elections.
“It disseminated false information about the political decisions adopted by the Russian Federation authorities, as well as about the electoral system. It called for unauthorized demonstrations and picketing” was how the Ministry of Justice justified its decision on Friday.
The former candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, who advocated peace negotiations with Ukraine, asserts that the authoritarian system of the Russian president Vladimir Putin is deteriorating, against the backdrop of frequent arrests and the decline in public confidence in the government.
At the beginning of June, the Russian Deputy Minister of Justice, Oleg Sviridenko, acknowledged that 96% of the individuals and entities declared foreign agents last year do not benefit from foreign funding, one of the main reasons for which this law was created.
Human rights defenders, as well as exiled dissidents, denounce the fact that this label violates the fundamental rights of citizens.
Details, HERE