Musician and satirist Semyon Slepakov and blogger Ilya Varlamov (both recognized as foreign agents in Russia) appealed to the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow with a demand to invalidate the decision of the Ministry of Justice to grant them the status of a foreign agent, follows from the case cards.
Both lawsuits were registered on May 15, they belong to the category “Other cases on challenging decisions, actions (inaction) of state authorities, military command and control bodies”.
RBC sent a request to the Ministry of Justice and the Zamoskvoretsky court, turned to Slepakov and Varlamov for comment.
Varlamov was included in the register of foreign agents on March 23. According to the Ministry of Justice, he “distributed false information about the decisions made by public authorities and their policies,” and also received funding from abroad. A blogger on his YouTube channel, commenting on the status of a foreign agent, said: “I just suddenly found myself in some new world, about which I had read a lot before.” Now “we have to find out what rules and laws are in the new world, and learn how to live with these laws,” he added.
Slepakov was added to the list on 14 April. He, according to the department, received support from abroad, spoke out against military operations in Ukraine, “formed a negative attitude towards military service and civil service in general,” spoke negatively about the Russians. Slepakov recorded several anti-war songs; last year the musician moved to Israel.
In May, TV presenter Maxim Galkin and singer Zemfira also decided to challenge the status of a foreign agent.