US rights activist ordered to leave Russia

A US rights activist said on Thursday that Russia had revoked her residency permit on national security grounds and given her two weeks to leave the country.

Vanessa Kogan, director of the Justice Initiative, which provides legal help to victims of rights abuses, has lived in Russia for 11 years and recently applied for citizenship.

Her group supports Russians in local courts and the European Court of Human Rights, where it has won over 250 cases and forced Russia to pay some 25 million euros ($30 million) in compensation to victims.

She told AFP on Thursday immigration officials had informed her that not only was she denied citizenship but that her residency permit was also no longer valid “on grounds of being a national security threat”.

The officials told her that the Federal Security Service (FSB) had made the decision, she said, adding that she would file an appeal on Friday.

Kogan, who is married to a Russian citizen with whom she has two children, said the move was “linked to a general crackdown on NGOs and human rights work”.

Justice Initiative has been particularly prominent in the North Caucasus and has provoked Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Russia’s Muslim-majority republic of Chechnya, Kogan said.

“We know our work is a serious thorn in his side and we’ve seen a backlash in particular because of our work on Chechnya in the past four years,” she said.

Last year security officers raided the group’s premises in Moscow and the government listed its office in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan as a “foreign agent”.

Russia’s controversial law on foreign agents — a term that has Soviet-era undertones — was first passed in 2012 and has been widely used against rights groups.

Lawmakers last month proposed a series of bills that would give authorities sweeping powers to designate individuals as foreign agents.

Kogan said she did not expect to win her appeal and said she also planned to file a lawsuit in Strasbourg.