“Tinkoff” disabled the transfers of the “Violence.net” center and the “Nuzhna pomość” fund

“Tinkoff” bank has disabled the ability to make money transfers to the “Violence.net” center and the charity fund “Nuzhna pomość”, Meduza reports.

At the same time, the bank did not contact the organizations and did not warn them about changes in work.

The “Violence.net” center, which helps victims of domestic violence, has been included in the register of “foreign agents” since December 2020. The head of the organization, Anna Ryvyna, stated then that the decision of the Ministry of Justice of Russia was revenge for the Center’s support of the law against domestic violence and the LGBT+ community. In February 2023, the Ministry of Justice declared Ryvyna herself a “foreign agent”: according to the department, she “distributed negative information about the activities of state bodies”, in particular – the Ministry of Defense. Both Ryvina and the organization headed by her were repeatedly fined by the courts for “violation of the order of activity of a non-commercial organization performing the functions of a foreign agent”, in total – hundreds of thousands of rubles.

The “Nuzhna pomość” charitable foundation was recognized as an “innoagent” last week, March 1. The organization provides financial support to dozens of other charitable foundations operating in Russia. Now, apparently, they will be forced to refuse cooperation with Nuzhna pomość.

• The Russian authorities can declare anyone who is under “foreign influence” to be a “foreign agent”, the definition of which is very vague in the law. Now there are more than 570 “foreign agents” in the register: individuals, mass media, NGOs and social movements.
• At the end of February, the State Duma passed a law prohibiting Russian citizens and companies from placing advertisements on the resources of “foreign agents”. The Speaker of the Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin declared the goal of the law “to deprive “foreign agents” of all sources of income in Russia.” After that, a number of independent public and journalistic projects reported forced suspension of work.