The Moscow City Court will consider the claim of the prosecutor's office on the liquidation of the interregional public organization "Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers", the court has already satisfied the suspension of its activities. This is reported by Vedomosti with reference to the court ruling on accepting the administrative case for proceedings dated June 16.

At the same time, the decision of July 4 to suspend the work of the trade union specifies that this was done in connection with the initiation of an administrative case on the "discredit" of the Russian Armed Forces. The case was opened due to “posting on the website of a publication containing false information about a special operation to protect the DPR and LPR.”

The prosecutor's office claims that the trade union uses information resources on the Internet with illegal information. The activity of the trade union "entails the violation of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, causing harm to public order and public security, society and the state."

As a representative of the trade union told the publication, in May the Moscow prosecutor's office informed the trade union about the inspection of its activities and demanded to provide data on the organization, its charter, decisions and minutes of congresses and meetings, information on sources of funding. The results of the inspection of the organization were not reported.

Lawyer Maxim Krupsky clarified that the trade union was not informed either about the lawsuit or about the initiation of an administrative case, which is mandatory. The President of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Dominique Pradale, in an address to the union called the process "unfair and unreasonable." European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) President Maya Sever said there were "signs of a political lawsuit" in connection with the lawsuit.

The trade union of journalists and media workers was established in 2016 by employees of Russian federal, regional and independent media. More than 600 journalists from 40 Russian regions are members of the trade union. The Ministry of Justice registered the organization in November 2017, the trade union is a member of the European Federation of Journalists. The goals of the independent association are to defend the rights of journalists to professional activities, as well as to protect their rights.

Earlier in June, the trade union of journalists received a response from the Investigative Committee of Russia to an appeal regarding the death in Kiev on March 23 of Russian journalist Oksana Baulina. The Investigative Committee stated that the information received from the trade union was taken into account and will be taken into account in the investigation of the criminal case. However, this wording does not mean that a criminal case has already been initiated into the death of the journalist, the association clarified. At the same time, the trade union turned to the Investigative Committee with a request to conduct an investigation into the death of Baulina on March 26, and not on April 26, 22, as indicated in the response of the Investigative Committee.