“Voice” coordinator Artyom Vazhenkov was declared wanted

The Investigative Committee announced the search for the coordinator of the “Voice” movement and the host of the Avtozak LIVE YouTube channel Artyom Vazhenkov. In January, a criminal case was initiated against him for malicious failure to perform the duties of a foreign agent. Vazhenkov does not mark his publications on the Internet with the mandatory text for foreign agents.

The head of the human rights organization “Agora”, attorney Pavel Chikov, drew attention to the appearance of Vazhenkov’s wanted card in the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He clarified that the search is declared as interstate, that is, it extends to Russia and the CIS countries.

Vazhenkov was included in the register of the so-called mass media – foreign agents immediately after the September 2021 State Duma elections. He left the country and did not mark his messages with the wording “created by a foreign agent”, as required by law. For this, the court fined him twice – 10 and 50 thousand rubles.

In August last year, Vazhenkov filed a complaint against his inclusion in the register of foreign agents to the European Court of Human Rights. At the same time, similar complaints were submitted to the ECHR by two more “Golos” coordinators, as well as the former lawyer of journalist Ivan Safronov, Ivan Pavlov, the publisher of “Mediazona” Pyotr Verzilov, and the Yakut human rights defender Stepan Petrov.