Paranoid Putin Persecutes NGOs

 

Paul Goble, blogging for the Moscow Times:

President Dmitry Medvedev’s May 2008 decision to transfer responsibility for the registration of non-governmental organizations from the Federal Registration Service (FRS) to the Ministry of Justice has not led to the kind of progress toward a law-based state for which many activists had hoped.

According to a new analysis of the legal situation in which Russian NGOs find themselves by Olga Gnezdilova, the legal affairs advisor to the Voronezh Inter-Regional Legal Defense Group, in many regions exactly the same officials are overseeing the registration process as were before this change was made, and the justice ministry has set quotas for the number of NGOs to be shut down each year.

Confronting Putin on Human Rights

Prima News reports:

The Initiative-taking Group on the Organization of a Public Tribunal for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity in the Russian Federation has been founded. Members include human rights activists Ludmila Alekseyeva, Valerie Abramkhin, Andrey Babushkin, Valerie Borshev, Lev Ponomarev, Yuri Samodurov, Mikhail Trepashkin, and Ernst Cherny. The first hearing of the tribunal is planned in April.

In a March 6 statement sent out by the “For Human Rights” movement, the Initiative-taking Group stated: “The need for this public tribunal is caused by the realities of today’s life. Russian human rights organizations, which regularly obtain numerous citizen complaints of grave crimes carried out by representatives of Russian “power” structures (siloviki), have repeatedly addressed the General Procurator’s office of the Russian Federation (RF), the Investigation Committee of the Procuratorship of the RF, and other relevant authorities with the demand that they conduct a thorough investigation of the facts and punish the guilty. However, none of these cases has been pursued, and the guilty have not been punished.

We believe that the public tribunal must be concentrated on two themes.

The first theme is information obtained by human rights activists about the torture and even, allegedly, murder of prisoners. This information has not been investigated by the authorities. Moreover, according to our information, numerous prison colonies have become torture zones, in which prisoners regularly undergo collective punishments and torture, but the complaints of prisoners are not investigated.

The second theme is the numerous kidnappings of young people in the republics of the North Caucasus by representatives of the “power” structures. Many disappear without leaving a trace. In those cases where kidnapped young people survive and are freed, they testify to torture and beatings and the participation in these actions by representatives of the authorities.

The basic purpose of the public tribunal is to draw attention to the themes listed above, and to ensure official investigation and punishment of the guilty parties.

The first session of public tribunal is planned for April 2008.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Putin’s War on NGOs

Writing in the New Statesman Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch’s London office, condemns Vladimir Putin’s shameless, cowardly war on NGOs. If Putin is so popular and Russia is so strong, why does he fear these small shoestring organizations so much?

“An election is more than what happens on election day,” goes the expression – and it seems particularly apposite to Russia in the lead up to the presidential elections on 2 March. In the past eight years the government of president Vladimir Putin has weakened, almost beyond recognition, most of the essential elements that underpin a healthy democracy.

All Russia’s major democratic institutions remain in place, but they have been largely emptied of real capacity to serve as a check on the Kremlin’s power. The news media have been neutered: independent TV and radio have been all but destroyed and the independent press severely curtailed. The parliamentary opposition in the Duma has been marginalized. Direct election of regional governors has been abolished. The independence of the judiciary has, through various means, been seriously compromised.

All this has been prominently reported in the international media. Less well known is the extent to which the Kremlin has deliberately gone about stifling another essential pillar of a vibrant and successful democracy: independent nongovernmental organisations.

In a report published this week, Human Rights Watch documents how Putin’s government has in recent years sharply turned the screw on Russia’s vibrant civil society that emerged from the glasnost era. The report, Choking on Bureaucracy, tells the depressing but familiar story of an authoritarian government using a combination of red tape and arbitrary intimidation to curtail the efforts of grassroots social activists to build a better society.

The main tool has been a 2006 law that gives the government agencies broad authority to regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations. It has used this law – and other measures such as the amended 2002 “anti-extremism law” – to silence or effectively paralyze critical voices. Particular targets of the Kremlin are those NGOs which work on controversial issues such as human rights, those working in sensitive regions such as the North Caucasus, those that receive foreign funding, and those which seek to galvanize legitimate public dissent.

The 2006 law grants state officials wide powers to interfere in the setting up and operations of all NGOs. The authorities can reject applications for registration on the pettiest of grounds. The law imposes onerous reporting requirements and allows officials to conduct regular and intrusive inspections, which have been used to harass NGOs. Both can tie down an organisation in weeks or months of paperwork.

In its attack on civil society, the government has not needed to resort to such blunt tactics as mass closings of NGOs or overt censorship. More subtly, though just as effectively and chillingly, it has drowned them in paperwork and bureaucracy, while maintaining veneer of legality. NGOs are free to challenge the warnings and directives which result from inspections, but only at a huge cost to their substantive work.

One example: throughout much of 2007 the Information Center of the NGO Council, a group that provides daily bulletins on the situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia, was threatened with dissolution by the tax service for being improperly registered and failing to pay back taxes. The organization is challenging a fine for the equivalent of US$ 20,000 imposed by the tax service.

The Kremlin has justified the NGO law on the grounds that it must monitor foreign funding of Russian NGOs. This is something the Kremlin has regarded with great suspicion since the so called ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia when public uprisings peacefully overturned pro-Moscow governments. Moscow believes those uprisings were spearheaded by foreign funded NGOs.

The Russian government, like any other, has the right to regulate NGOs. But it also has a duty to ensure that any restrictions on NGOs are compatible with Russia’s obligations under international human rights laws that protect freedom of expression and association.

As the Human Rights Watch’s report demonstrates quite clearly, the 2006 NGO law and other restrictive measures used against NGOs by the Russian authorities are in violation of international human rights standards and hinder the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights.

The 2 March election may be a foregone conclusion. But there is a longer term, and those seeking to salvage Russian democracy should start by challenging the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs and speaking up for the rights of Russia’s courageous and vibrant civil society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Putin’s War on NGOs

Writing in the New Statesman Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch’s London office, condemns Vladimir Putin’s shameless, cowardly war on NGOs. If Putin is so popular and Russia is so strong, why does he fear these small shoestring organizations so much?

“An election is more than what happens on election day,” goes the expression – and it seems particularly apposite to Russia in the lead up to the presidential elections on 2 March. In the past eight years the government of president Vladimir Putin has weakened, almost beyond recognition, most of the essential elements that underpin a healthy democracy.

All Russia’s major democratic institutions remain in place, but they have been largely emptied of real capacity to serve as a check on the Kremlin’s power. The news media have been neutered: independent TV and radio have been all but destroyed and the independent press severely curtailed. The parliamentary opposition in the Duma has been marginalized. Direct election of regional governors has been abolished. The independence of the judiciary has, through various means, been seriously compromised.

All this has been prominently reported in the international media. Less well known is the extent to which the Kremlin has deliberately gone about stifling another essential pillar of a vibrant and successful democracy: independent nongovernmental organisations.

In a report published this week, Human Rights Watch documents how Putin’s government has in recent years sharply turned the screw on Russia’s vibrant civil society that emerged from the glasnost era. The report, Choking on Bureaucracy, tells the depressing but familiar story of an authoritarian government using a combination of red tape and arbitrary intimidation to curtail the efforts of grassroots social activists to build a better society.

The main tool has been a 2006 law that gives the government agencies broad authority to regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations. It has used this law – and other measures such as the amended 2002 “anti-extremism law” – to silence or effectively paralyze critical voices. Particular targets of the Kremlin are those NGOs which work on controversial issues such as human rights, those working in sensitive regions such as the North Caucasus, those that receive foreign funding, and those which seek to galvanize legitimate public dissent.

The 2006 law grants state officials wide powers to interfere in the setting up and operations of all NGOs. The authorities can reject applications for registration on the pettiest of grounds. The law imposes onerous reporting requirements and allows officials to conduct regular and intrusive inspections, which have been used to harass NGOs. Both can tie down an organisation in weeks or months of paperwork.

In its attack on civil society, the government has not needed to resort to such blunt tactics as mass closings of NGOs or overt censorship. More subtly, though just as effectively and chillingly, it has drowned them in paperwork and bureaucracy, while maintaining veneer of legality. NGOs are free to challenge the warnings and directives which result from inspections, but only at a huge cost to their substantive work.

One example: throughout much of 2007 the Information Center of the NGO Council, a group that provides daily bulletins on the situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia, was threatened with dissolution by the tax service for being improperly registered and failing to pay back taxes. The organization is challenging a fine for the equivalent of US$ 20,000 imposed by the tax service.

The Kremlin has justified the NGO law on the grounds that it must monitor foreign funding of Russian NGOs. This is something the Kremlin has regarded with great suspicion since the so called ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia when public uprisings peacefully overturned pro-Moscow governments. Moscow believes those uprisings were spearheaded by foreign funded NGOs.

The Russian government, like any other, has the right to regulate NGOs. But it also has a duty to ensure that any restrictions on NGOs are compatible with Russia’s obligations under international human rights laws that protect freedom of expression and association.

As the Human Rights Watch’s report demonstrates quite clearly, the 2006 NGO law and other restrictive measures used against NGOs by the Russian authorities are in violation of international human rights standards and hinder the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights.

The 2 March election may be a foregone conclusion. But there is a longer term, and those seeking to salvage Russian democracy should start by challenging the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs and speaking up for the rights of Russia’s courageous and vibrant civil society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Putin’s War on NGOs

Writing in the New Statesman Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch’s London office, condemns Vladimir Putin’s shameless, cowardly war on NGOs. If Putin is so popular and Russia is so strong, why does he fear these small shoestring organizations so much?

“An election is more than what happens on election day,” goes the expression – and it seems particularly apposite to Russia in the lead up to the presidential elections on 2 March. In the past eight years the government of president Vladimir Putin has weakened, almost beyond recognition, most of the essential elements that underpin a healthy democracy.

All Russia’s major democratic institutions remain in place, but they have been largely emptied of real capacity to serve as a check on the Kremlin’s power. The news media have been neutered: independent TV and radio have been all but destroyed and the independent press severely curtailed. The parliamentary opposition in the Duma has been marginalized. Direct election of regional governors has been abolished. The independence of the judiciary has, through various means, been seriously compromised.

All this has been prominently reported in the international media. Less well known is the extent to which the Kremlin has deliberately gone about stifling another essential pillar of a vibrant and successful democracy: independent nongovernmental organisations.

In a report published this week, Human Rights Watch documents how Putin’s government has in recent years sharply turned the screw on Russia’s vibrant civil society that emerged from the glasnost era. The report, Choking on Bureaucracy, tells the depressing but familiar story of an authoritarian government using a combination of red tape and arbitrary intimidation to curtail the efforts of grassroots social activists to build a better society.

The main tool has been a 2006 law that gives the government agencies broad authority to regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations. It has used this law – and other measures such as the amended 2002 “anti-extremism law” – to silence or effectively paralyze critical voices. Particular targets of the Kremlin are those NGOs which work on controversial issues such as human rights, those working in sensitive regions such as the North Caucasus, those that receive foreign funding, and those which seek to galvanize legitimate public dissent.

The 2006 law grants state officials wide powers to interfere in the setting up and operations of all NGOs. The authorities can reject applications for registration on the pettiest of grounds. The law imposes onerous reporting requirements and allows officials to conduct regular and intrusive inspections, which have been used to harass NGOs. Both can tie down an organisation in weeks or months of paperwork.

In its attack on civil society, the government has not needed to resort to such blunt tactics as mass closings of NGOs or overt censorship. More subtly, though just as effectively and chillingly, it has drowned them in paperwork and bureaucracy, while maintaining veneer of legality. NGOs are free to challenge the warnings and directives which result from inspections, but only at a huge cost to their substantive work.

One example: throughout much of 2007 the Information Center of the NGO Council, a group that provides daily bulletins on the situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia, was threatened with dissolution by the tax service for being improperly registered and failing to pay back taxes. The organization is challenging a fine for the equivalent of US$ 20,000 imposed by the tax service.

The Kremlin has justified the NGO law on the grounds that it must monitor foreign funding of Russian NGOs. This is something the Kremlin has regarded with great suspicion since the so called ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia when public uprisings peacefully overturned pro-Moscow governments. Moscow believes those uprisings were spearheaded by foreign funded NGOs.

The Russian government, like any other, has the right to regulate NGOs. But it also has a duty to ensure that any restrictions on NGOs are compatible with Russia’s obligations under international human rights laws that protect freedom of expression and association.

As the Human Rights Watch’s report demonstrates quite clearly, the 2006 NGO law and other restrictive measures used against NGOs by the Russian authorities are in violation of international human rights standards and hinder the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights.

The 2 March election may be a foregone conclusion. But there is a longer term, and those seeking to salvage Russian democracy should start by challenging the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs and speaking up for the rights of Russia’s courageous and vibrant civil society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Putin’s War on NGOs

Writing in the New Statesman Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch’s London office, condemns Vladimir Putin’s shameless, cowardly war on NGOs. If Putin is so popular and Russia is so strong, why does he fear these small shoestring organizations so much?

“An election is more than what happens on election day,” goes the expression – and it seems particularly apposite to Russia in the lead up to the presidential elections on 2 March. In the past eight years the government of president Vladimir Putin has weakened, almost beyond recognition, most of the essential elements that underpin a healthy democracy.

All Russia’s major democratic institutions remain in place, but they have been largely emptied of real capacity to serve as a check on the Kremlin’s power. The news media have been neutered: independent TV and radio have been all but destroyed and the independent press severely curtailed. The parliamentary opposition in the Duma has been marginalized. Direct election of regional governors has been abolished. The independence of the judiciary has, through various means, been seriously compromised.

All this has been prominently reported in the international media. Less well known is the extent to which the Kremlin has deliberately gone about stifling another essential pillar of a vibrant and successful democracy: independent nongovernmental organisations.

In a report published this week, Human Rights Watch documents how Putin’s government has in recent years sharply turned the screw on Russia’s vibrant civil society that emerged from the glasnost era. The report, Choking on Bureaucracy, tells the depressing but familiar story of an authoritarian government using a combination of red tape and arbitrary intimidation to curtail the efforts of grassroots social activists to build a better society.

The main tool has been a 2006 law that gives the government agencies broad authority to regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations. It has used this law – and other measures such as the amended 2002 “anti-extremism law” – to silence or effectively paralyze critical voices. Particular targets of the Kremlin are those NGOs which work on controversial issues such as human rights, those working in sensitive regions such as the North Caucasus, those that receive foreign funding, and those which seek to galvanize legitimate public dissent.

The 2006 law grants state officials wide powers to interfere in the setting up and operations of all NGOs. The authorities can reject applications for registration on the pettiest of grounds. The law imposes onerous reporting requirements and allows officials to conduct regular and intrusive inspections, which have been used to harass NGOs. Both can tie down an organisation in weeks or months of paperwork.

In its attack on civil society, the government has not needed to resort to such blunt tactics as mass closings of NGOs or overt censorship. More subtly, though just as effectively and chillingly, it has drowned them in paperwork and bureaucracy, while maintaining veneer of legality. NGOs are free to challenge the warnings and directives which result from inspections, but only at a huge cost to their substantive work.

One example: throughout much of 2007 the Information Center of the NGO Council, a group that provides daily bulletins on the situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia, was threatened with dissolution by the tax service for being improperly registered and failing to pay back taxes. The organization is challenging a fine for the equivalent of US$ 20,000 imposed by the tax service.

The Kremlin has justified the NGO law on the grounds that it must monitor foreign funding of Russian NGOs. This is something the Kremlin has regarded with great suspicion since the so called ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia when public uprisings peacefully overturned pro-Moscow governments. Moscow believes those uprisings were spearheaded by foreign funded NGOs.

The Russian government, like any other, has the right to regulate NGOs. But it also has a duty to ensure that any restrictions on NGOs are compatible with Russia’s obligations under international human rights laws that protect freedom of expression and association.

As the Human Rights Watch’s report demonstrates quite clearly, the 2006 NGO law and other restrictive measures used against NGOs by the Russian authorities are in violation of international human rights standards and hinder the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights.

The 2 March election may be a foregone conclusion. But there is a longer term, and those seeking to salvage Russian democracy should start by challenging the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs and speaking up for the rights of Russia’s courageous and vibrant civil society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Putin’s War on NGOs

Writing in the New Statesman Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch’s London office, condemns Vladimir Putin’s shameless, cowardly war on NGOs. If Putin is so popular and Russia is so strong, why does he fear these small shoestring organizations so much?

“An election is more than what happens on election day,” goes the expression – and it seems particularly apposite to Russia in the lead up to the presidential elections on 2 March. In the past eight years the government of president Vladimir Putin has weakened, almost beyond recognition, most of the essential elements that underpin a healthy democracy.

All Russia’s major democratic institutions remain in place, but they have been largely emptied of real capacity to serve as a check on the Kremlin’s power. The news media have been neutered: independent TV and radio have been all but destroyed and the independent press severely curtailed. The parliamentary opposition in the Duma has been marginalized. Direct election of regional governors has been abolished. The independence of the judiciary has, through various means, been seriously compromised.

All this has been prominently reported in the international media. Less well known is the extent to which the Kremlin has deliberately gone about stifling another essential pillar of a vibrant and successful democracy: independent nongovernmental organisations.

In a report published this week, Human Rights Watch documents how Putin’s government has in recent years sharply turned the screw on Russia’s vibrant civil society that emerged from the glasnost era. The report, Choking on Bureaucracy, tells the depressing but familiar story of an authoritarian government using a combination of red tape and arbitrary intimidation to curtail the efforts of grassroots social activists to build a better society.

The main tool has been a 2006 law that gives the government agencies broad authority to regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations. It has used this law – and other measures such as the amended 2002 “anti-extremism law” – to silence or effectively paralyze critical voices. Particular targets of the Kremlin are those NGOs which work on controversial issues such as human rights, those working in sensitive regions such as the North Caucasus, those that receive foreign funding, and those which seek to galvanize legitimate public dissent.

The 2006 law grants state officials wide powers to interfere in the setting up and operations of all NGOs. The authorities can reject applications for registration on the pettiest of grounds. The law imposes onerous reporting requirements and allows officials to conduct regular and intrusive inspections, which have been used to harass NGOs. Both can tie down an organisation in weeks or months of paperwork.

In its attack on civil society, the government has not needed to resort to such blunt tactics as mass closings of NGOs or overt censorship. More subtly, though just as effectively and chillingly, it has drowned them in paperwork and bureaucracy, while maintaining veneer of legality. NGOs are free to challenge the warnings and directives which result from inspections, but only at a huge cost to their substantive work.

One example: throughout much of 2007 the Information Center of the NGO Council, a group that provides daily bulletins on the situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia, was threatened with dissolution by the tax service for being improperly registered and failing to pay back taxes. The organization is challenging a fine for the equivalent of US$ 20,000 imposed by the tax service.

The Kremlin has justified the NGO law on the grounds that it must monitor foreign funding of Russian NGOs. This is something the Kremlin has regarded with great suspicion since the so called ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia when public uprisings peacefully overturned pro-Moscow governments. Moscow believes those uprisings were spearheaded by foreign funded NGOs.

The Russian government, like any other, has the right to regulate NGOs. But it also has a duty to ensure that any restrictions on NGOs are compatible with Russia’s obligations under international human rights laws that protect freedom of expression and association.

As the Human Rights Watch’s report demonstrates quite clearly, the 2006 NGO law and other restrictive measures used against NGOs by the Russian authorities are in violation of international human rights standards and hinder the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights.

The 2 March election may be a foregone conclusion. But there is a longer term, and those seeking to salvage Russian democracy should start by challenging the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs and speaking up for the rights of Russia’s courageous and vibrant civil society.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of the Neo-Soviet Crackdown: Even More Restrictions on NGOs

Even as the Kremlin is refusing to allow Western inspectors to oversee its parliamentary elections, clearly indicating it has something to hide, it is proposing to enact a whole new set of draconian restrictions on the activities of NGOs that operate inside Russia. The International Herald Tribune reports:

The government is considering new restrictions on Russian human rights and other nongovernmental groups to limit their ability to participate in Western democracy organizations such as the OSCE, an activist said Saturday. The proposed restrictions appeared to be the latest Kremlin effort to hamper the work of NGOs in Russia. Lyudmila Alexeyeva, director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the proposals were backed also by several other ex-Soviet republics with authoritarian governments including Uzbekistan and Belarus. Among the restrictions is one that would require Russian government approval for a Russian NGO to participate in meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, she said. That could effectively block groups critical of the Kremlin from any involvement, she said.

Russian officials have accused foreign countries, including the United States and Britain, of using NGOs to spy on and weaken Russia, and last year President Vladimir Putin signed a law tightening requirements on NGOs. Alexeyeva said the new proposals were part of efforts to pressure foreign-funded NGOs before next month’s parliamentary elections and the presidential vote in March. Russian government officials could not be reached for comment on the proposals Saturday afternoon.

Russia has become increasingly confrontational with Western organizations in recent years, and routinely has criticized the 56-nation OSCE. This week, Moscow significantly curtailed the number of international observers it would accept for the Dec. 2 parliamentary vote — a move widely seen as targeting OSCE monitors.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

NGOs, Buried Alive

The Moscow Times reports on the Kremlin’s declaration of war on foreign NGO groups operating in Russia.

In a blizzard of bureaucratic absurdity, the new registration law for nongovernmental organizations has created administrative hurdles threatening to put many out of business and deterring others from setting up shop at all. When the bill passed last year, NGO representatives suggested that it was an instance of bureaucracy being deliberately beefed up to fight organizations the government dislikes. Now, they say that up to three-quarters of over 200,000 officially registered noncommercial organizations could face closure. “It’s just tremendous bureaucracy,” said Jens Siegert, head of the Heinrich Foundation’s Moscow office. He said his organization, affiliated with the German Green Party, had to hire one extra staff member solely to cope with the workload.

Part of that workload came from a stipulation in the law that every single organization had to submit new accounting forms to the Federal Registration Service, a sprawling government body with roughly 40,000 employees that reports to the Justice Ministry. The agency’s deputy spokeswoman, Lyubov Mikhailova, said that by May 20, just 48,470 — less than 24 percent of the more than 216,000 registered NGOs in the country — had submitted accounting forms, more than a month after the original deadline in April had passed. Mikhailova did not comment on what the consequences of noncompliance would be for the organizations. In a written response, she merely stated that during the first half of this year, 18,022 domestic and 34 foreign organizations received written warnings for not submitting the forms or violating submission procedures. This amounts to 8 percent of the national and 15 percent of the 226 foreign-run NGOs.

But critics say that just doing everything necessary to comply itself amounts to punishment. In addition, foreign-run organizations must hand in quarterly financial reports and a plan of their activities for the coming year that includes the amount of money allotted for each project by Oct. 31. Authorities must be notified of any new program at least one month in advance and of any essential change of plans within 10 business days of the decision.

The law also requires all foreign NGOs to re-register their offices by Oct. 18. Dozens of NGOs, including some that had submitted their documents prior to the deadline, were not in the registry by Oct. 18 and had to suspend their activities in Russia for days or weeks until the registry reviewed their paperwork and officially re-registered them. The recipients see the additional requirements as proof of what they believe is the regulation’s real purpose — to rule out the possibility that foreign organizations could provoke public unrest in the way the Kremlin believes happened in Georgia and Ukraine. “I call this law an Orange measure,” Siegert said in a telephone interview, referring to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, which brought President Viktor Yushchenko to power. “NGOs are forced to occupy themselves with internal matters instead of their real work,” he said. He also suggested that the relatively low numbers of warnings issued was a sign that the authorities themselves were also overwhelmed by the workload.

The new regulations prevented small organizations in particular from focusing on their real activities, said Inara Gulpe-Laganovska, NGO liaison officer for Human Rights Watch in Russia. She also said the law contained disproportionate punishment for violations. “Only two types exist — suspension or liquidation,” she said in e-mailed comments. Aside from the burdens, critics say the law allows the authorities to engage in excessive interference. “The worst thing is that the reporting makes NGOs vulnerable by giving registration officials an unprecedented level of discretion in deciding which projects comply with Russia’s national interest,” Gulpe-Laganovska said.

Human rights campaigners also point to the fact that authorities have arbitrarily targeted some organizations with seemingly ludicrous demands. The St. Petersburg-based NGO Citizens’ Watch, for instance, has been asked to disclose the entirety of its written correspondence with anyone or any organization outside the office over a three-year period — including e-mails. “The registration service came to us in July and showed us a screening warrant,” the organization’s chairman, Boris Pustintsev, said in a telephone interview. “They then suddenly demanded that we produce all outgoing correspondence from July 2004 to July 2007.” Pustintsev said he initially refused because he believed the request exceeded the agency’s competence. After a board meeting, however, the NGO did grudgingly agree to comply “because otherwise the authorities could freeze our bank accounts,” he said. But Pustintsev added that Citizens’ Watch also decided to “raise hell” with the Federal Registration Service. “We will sue them, we will appeal to [service head Sergei] Vasilyev, and we might take the matter to the Constitutional Court,” Pustintsev said.

Other organizations have already been officially closed under dubious circumstances. The International Youth Human Rights Movement — a group that says it has 1,000 active members in Russia and abroad — learned in early August that it had been shut down by a court in Nizhny Novgorod. “The ruling was made June 13, but we only heard about it by chance almost two months later,” the movement’s coordinator, Dmitry Makarov, said in a telephone interview. The rationale behind the decision seems to stem from a basic bureaucratic mix-up. “The court based its decision on our failure to submit accounting forms to the local branch of the registration service,” Makarov said. Instead, he said, the documents had been filed to the Federal Registration Service in Moscow, as requested, because the organization had reorganized into an international group in 2004. Bereft of its legal status, the movement is now filing a legal complaint against the ruling.

Others are also trying to fight back. Agora, an interregional association of Russian human rights groups, said in a memorandum that it found 33 cases of unlawful actions from the service against NGOs from April 2006 to May 2007. Agora provided legal assistance to those concerned in 20 of them. The cases demonstrated the service’s “unfriendly bias against NGOs,” excessive demands on their operations and, in some cases, an unwillingness to maintain constructive relations, the memorandum said. Another consequence is that setting up an NGO has become a daunting task. A study prepared under the presidential human rights council found that the cost of legal procedures was 33 percent higher than setting up a business and requires more time. “It takes a minimum of six to eight weeks to register an NGO, while registering a commercial company takes from seven to 10 days,” said Anton Zolotov of the Institute of Civil Analysis, who co-authored the survey, preliminary versions of which were released earlier this year. Siegert said he knew of at least two cases where individuals had opted to open up a business instead of an NGO, just to avoid the hassle.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of the Neo-Soviet Crackdown on NGOs

The Independent reports:

At least 600 Russian NGOs, defending everything from consumers’ to Communists’ rights, have been deregistered for failing to comply with cumbersome new rules, a Russian media monitoring group said. The NGOs are, in effect, crippled, unable to open bank accounts or new offices. The Voronezh-based Interregional Group of Human Rights Defenders added that in some cases, the deregistering appeared to be politically motivated.

Critics of the NGO registration law, which came into effect in April 2006 and requires NGOs to file lengthy annual reports, have lambasted it as an excuse to clamp down on Russia’s nascent civil society. Opponents of the government can be deregistered over technicalities, they say. The government, however, argues that many NGOs are fronts for criminals or terrorists and need to be vetted. “There’s an opinion among the country’s leadership that the revolutions that happened in Ukraine and Georgia were begun by NGOs,” said the report’s author, Olga Gnezdilova, referring to pro-democracy uprisings in the former Soviet nations.

In October, 77 NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, were temporarily forced to suspend activities after missing a registration deadline. Ella Pamfilova, a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, later admitted that the new law was suffocating NGOs. This year, only 216,000 of around 500,000 Russian NGOs were able to meet the registration deadline, the Kommersant business daily reported on Monday. The remainder can be taken to court and stripped of their registration. The new report, which collates media reports from eight regions, says that NGOs are being declared inactive by courts though some claim they filed all the necessary documents.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

More Craven Kremlin Attacks on Helpless NGOs

Why can’t the Kremlin pick on somebody it’s own size? The only answer is cowardice. The Moscow Times reports that yet another defenseless NGO has fallen under the cowardly sword of the malignant little bully-troll who occupies the Kremlin:

North Ossetian police seized two computers and documents Wednesday in the Vladikavkaz office of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, a British nongovernmental organization, said IWPR’s coordinator in the North Caucasus, Valery Dzutsev.

The raid came a month after police opened a criminal investigation into Dzutsev on suspected tax evasion.

The North Ossetian police investigator leading the case, Aslan Torchinov, said by telephone from Vladikavkaz that he had no comment on the case.

Dzutsev, who has contributed to The Moscow Times as a freelance journalist, said that he had paid his taxes and that the case seemed to be part of a campaign of intimidation.

“The problems with the authorities began a month after the NGO law went into effect last April,” he said.

IWPR, an NGO with a global outreach, has trained journalists in the Caucasus since the late 1990s. Its Vladikavkaz office opened in 2002, and Dzutsev has headed it since then. It is now trying to re-register with authorities as required by the NGO law.

“We are shocked and surprised by this development, and we give our full support to our coordinator, Valery Dzutsev, who has acted completely honestly within Russian law,” IWPR executive director Tony Borden said in a statement.

The investigation looks like an attempt to silence both a foreign NGO training journalists and an information outlet, said Nina Ognianova, a representative of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

“By using the law as a pretext, authorities are incapacitating the Vladikavkaz office,” she said, referring to seized computers.

IWPR journalists file reports about local issues.

Dzutsev said investigators told him to show up at their office next week as they will look through the seized documents and computers.

Last year, IWPR’s senior editor, Tom de Waal, was denied a Russian visa without explanation.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !