European Court of Human Rights Issues Landmark Ruling in Favor of RFE/RL Against Russia
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) welcomes today’s landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that Russia’s “foreign agent” laws violate the right to freedom of expression.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) welcomes today’s landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that Russia’s “foreign agent” laws violate the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Those Russian laws, among other things, required RFE/RL to apply a lengthy and misleading “foreign agent” label to all of its content. The Kremlin has issued millions of dollars of fines against RFE/RL and the general director of its Moscow Bureau, Andrey Shary, for refusing to comply with this measure – designed to discredit independent media in Russia.
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said:
“Journalism is not a crime and it’s gratifying to see the European Court of Human Rights acknowledge that as a matter of international law.
As the European Court held in its judgment today, Moscow’s ‘foreign agent’ laws were brazenly designed by the government to criminalize free speech and prevent independent journalists from doing their job.
The ruling makes clear that was in violation of Russia’s obligations under international law. The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve access to truthful information about their country.”
In today’s judgment, the Court held that “the requirement to use the stigmatizing and misleading ‘foreign agent’ label…is unrelated to the stated purpose of transparency and creates instead an environment of forced self-stigmatization while severely restricting the ability of the applicant media organizations and individual journalists to participate in public discourse and carry out their professional activities.”
The Court also found that the foreign agent laws were being applied arbitrarily and “contributed to shrinking democratic space by creating an environment of suspicion and mistrust…thereby undermining the very foundations of a democracy.”
Aside from declaring Russia to be in violation of the European Convention, the Court has also ordered Russia to compensate RFE/RL 955,440 Euros (approx. USD 1,035,000) by way of pecuniary damages.
Beginning in January 2021, Russian regulators filed more than one thousand administrative cases against RFE/RL and Mr. Shary in the Russian courts and levied fines amounting to more than 10 million U.S. dollars. Russian court bailiffs visited RFE/RL’s Moscow bureau twice to notify the organization about enforcement proceedings for the fines arising from RFE/RL’s refusal to label its content. RFE/RL’s Russian bank accounts were frozen by court order in May 2021, and RFE/RL was forced to suspend operations in Russia in March 2022.
Since 2017, when Russia expanded its controversial “foreign agent” laws to include media outlets, ten of RFE/RL’s news outlets and dozens of journalists associated with RFE/RL have been designated “foreign agents” by the Russian Ministry of Justice. The law on “foreign agents” has been condemned by EU High Commissioner Josep Borrell, the European Parliament, the U.S. Department of State, and other international bodies as an infringement of fundamental freedoms.
RFE/RL is represented by English barristers Can Yeginsu and Ian McDonald of 3 Verulam Buildings and Marney Cheek and David Pinsky of the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP.
For more information, contact press@rferl.org.
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About RFE/RL
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a private, independent international news organization whose programs — radio, Internet, television, and mobile — reach influential audiences in 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is funded by the U.S. Congress through USAGM.