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The Free Russia Foundation has been added to the list of “extremist organizations” maintained by the Russian Ministry of Justice, according to a report by the human rights organization Perviy Otdel. The move effectively outlaws the foundation's work across the country and puts its employees at risk of criminal prosecution.
The Ministry of Justice has made the designation public on its website, listing the non-existent “Anti-Russia Separatist Movement” and 55 of its “structural subdivisions” — including the Free Russia Foundation, the Free Buryatia Foundation, and the Free Yakutia Foundation — in its register of “extremist organizations.”
The Free Russia Foundation was founded in 2014 by a group of Russian emigres in Washington, DC. It supports victims of political repression and civil society, and publishes analytical reports on current events in Russia.
The foundation was previously classified as “undesirable” by Russia’s Ministry of Justice in 2019.
Last May, the director of the foundation, Natalia Arno, suffered a poisoning attempt during her business trip to Prague. Shortly before the onset of the symptoms, Arno noticed that the door to her hotel room was open and a strange odor similar to the “scent of cheap perfume” could be felt in the room.
Her vice president, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was poisoned twice with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok while traveling through Russia. In April last year, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison after having been arrested months earlier for speaking out against the war in Ukraine on the American cable news channel MSNBC.