MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin, in an article to appear in Rossiyskaya Gazeta's Thursday's issue, argues that Russian human rights groups have a legal right to receive grants from abroad but claims that some of them of "over-politicize their activities and statements and look for deliberate confrontation with the authorities."

"There have been attempts to discredit some of these organizations because of their being financed with foreign grants though in the majority of cases this has not been illegal and has been in tune with global practice," Lukin says in his article.

"It is an exception more than a rule" that Russian human rights organizations receive funds from the state or from private Russian sponsors, he says.

"As a result, they are quite often forced to seek foreign sources of financing, which in principle is not prohibited, and consequently permitted, by Russian laws. It is just important that foreign grants should not become an end in itself," the ombudsman says.

He also says it is a lawful demand that nongovernmental organizations be transparent about their reception and use of foreign grants.

Sometimes NGOs, "departing from generally accepted principles of human rights defense, over-politicize their activities and statements and look for deliberate confrontation with the authorities," he says.

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