Your home is being searched
Whom to write to now
- Write to Prison Lawyer online
- Write to First Department abroad · foreign agent
- Write to Solidarity Zone in Russia and abroad · foreign agent
Draft: not yet checked by a lawyer
The guides below are drafts: a lawyer has not reviewed them yet. This is not legal advice.Draft What human rights defenders advise
Your home is being searched
- Ask to see the court order. In urgent cases a search can go ahead without one, with the court notified later (art. 165 pt 5 CPC).
- The law requires two attesting witnesses (arts 170, 182 CPC). You can ask for neighbours to be called; any refusal should go into the record.
- Call a lawyer straight away: you have the right to one, but the investigator does not have to wait for them to arrive.
- The law does not expressly require you to give passwords; human rights groups point to art. 51 of the Constitution. In practice a refusal is sometimes met with pressure, so decide with your lawyer in advance how to handle it. Turn on encryption and a passcode lock in advance. During a search, do not hide or switch off devices in front of officers: it can make your situation worse.
- Human rights groups advise putting every violation into the comments on the record, asking for a full copy and watching that nothing is planted.
Ready-made templates and tools
- Templates for complaints and applications (in Russian) · First Department (foreign agent) · link checked 26 September 2026
- Template collection: motions, complaints, applications (in Russian) · OVD-Info (foreign agent, extremist) · link checked 26 September 2026
current as of 26 September 2026. More: First Department: what to do during a search (foreign agent); OVD-Info: my home is being searched (extremist)