With the State Duma set to vote on a bill that will force NGOs to register as "foreign agents" Friday, human rights activists are bracing to resist a new spate of government pressure.

file photo
But the amendments, touted by pro-Kremlin deputies as an analogy to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, will merely put into law practices that are already directed against NGOs, activists say.

"It's an institutionalization of cookies," Yelena Panfilova, head of the Russian branch of Transparency International, told The Moscow News on Thursday. She was referring to televised propaganda campaigns which accused anti-government protesters of receiving "cookies" from the U.S. State Department.

"This isn't just a signal [that NGOs can be pressured], it's also a means by which the government can deal with its psychological issues, after being frightened by the mass protests," Panfilova explained. "They urgently needed to find a scapegoat, a foreign agent."

The bill, introduced last month by United Russia Deputy Alexander Sidyakin, would create a special category for NGOs that are "involved in politics and have foreign financing." Such NGOs would be placed in a special registry of organizations that "act as foreign agents" and would be subject to separate laws and additional government checks. Failure to comply with stringent registration and accounting rules could lead to a fine of up to 1 million rubles ($31,000), or even four years in jail.

The proposal sparked fears from NGOs and rights activists that it was just another measure by the Kremlin to clamp down on dissent after months of mass protests over parliamentary and presidential elections in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The Presidential Human Rights Council called the bill "odious" and warned that the amendments contained "unconstitutional norms and practices," urging that a parliamentary vote be postponed to allow for wider public discussion.

"Not a single country in Europe has such a law, and in the United States it resulted in McCarthyism," the council's head, Mikhail Fedotov, was quoted by Kommersant as saying.

Fedotov pledged to bring up this issue with President Vladimir Putin personally. "On Friday we agreed with Vladimir Putin to meet, but it's not clear when this meeting will take place," he said.

The Public Chamber said it would support the bill only if the wording was changed, finding terms like "political activity" and "forming public opinion" too broad, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, meanwhile, was holding public hearings in parliament on Thursday, with the Duma due to vote on the amendments Friday during a first hearing, which the bill was widely anticipated to pass.

Veteran rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, meanwhile, pledged to get the deputies behind the bill included in the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. measure to blacklist some 60 Russian officials implicated in the prison death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Critics of the bill cautioned against examining the measure in a legal framework. "This bill is beyond the sphere of jurisprudence, it is in the realm of psychiatry," Alexander Cherkasov, one of the directors of the Memorial human rights society, told The Moscow News. "If we make a list of organizations that get foreign financing, then it would include the Russian government. The church gets funding from foreign sources."

The law, according to Cherkasov, isn't just a Soviet relic, but goes back as far as the 16th century. "The mindset of the Iron Curtain, or better yet, the times of Ivan the Terrible, who debated with Prince Kurbsky on whether he had the right to cross the border or to whom his soul belonged ­ all this is being applied to the 21st century," Cherkasov said. "This bill has nothing to do with the law."

Rather than creating conditions for systemic persecution of NGOs, however, the bill would merely increase random or selective attacks. Well-established NGOs like Memorial and Transparency International have already grown accustomed to bureaucratic hassles and were resolved to withstand them.

A previous NGO law passed during Putin's second presidential term served as a signal for regional bureaucrats to pounce on provincial Memorial offices. The new amendments will serve as another signal, activists believe.

"This will increase the bureaucratic burden. And it will inevitably create a situation of selective persecution of such organizations," Cherkasov said. "But largely, NGOs have already learned to live in such conditions."

Panfilova, of Transparency International, was resolved not to let the new amendments interfere with her work. "Neither I, nor directors of other NGOs are going to accept this pressure," she said. "It won't affect us."

Advocates of the bill insisted it was directed against foreign interference, not at domestic NGOs.

"Possible abuses are no reason not to adopt a bill," Sergei Markov, a political expert close to the Kremlin and a member of the United Russia party, told The Moscow News. "It doesn't forbid anything, it is directed toward making things more transparent and against political corruption. We have a whole number of people who present themselves as rights activists when they are actually politicians."

He singled out U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for suggesting new mechanisms of financing for NGOs.

"What, is she going to use submarines to bring this money in? The law won't force her to give up support for her allies or servants in Russia. She can give as much as she wants. She will just have to report it," Markov said.

Keywords: Russia, Nonprofits, Activists, NGO's - Russian News - Russia

With the State Duma set to vote on a bill that will force NGOs to register as "foreign agents" Friday, human rights activists are bracing to resist a new spate of government pressure.

file photo
But the amendments, touted by pro-Kremlin deputies as an analogy to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, will merely put into law practices that are already directed against NGOs, activists say.

"It's an institutionalization of cookies," Yelena Panfilova, head of the Russian branch of Transparency International, told The Moscow News on Thursday. She was referring to televised propaganda campaigns which accused anti-government protesters of receiving "cookies" from the U.S. State Department.

"This isn't just a signal [that NGOs can be pressured], it's also a means by which the government can deal with its psychological issues, after being frightened by the mass protests," Panfilova explained. "They urgently needed to find a scapegoat, a foreign agent."

The bill, introduced last month by United Russia Deputy Alexander Sidyakin, would create a special category for NGOs that are "involved in politics and have foreign financing." Such NGOs would be placed in a special registry of organizations that "act as foreign agents" and would be subject to separate laws and additional government checks. Failure to comply with stringent registration and accounting rules could lead to a fine of up to 1 million rubles ($31,000), or even four years in jail.

The proposal sparked fears from NGOs and rights activists that it was just another measure by the Kremlin to clamp down on dissent after months of mass protests over parliamentary and presidential elections in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The Presidential Human Rights Council called the bill "odious" and warned that the amendments contained "unconstitutional norms and practices," urging that a parliamentary vote be postponed to allow for wider public discussion.

"Not a single country in Europe has such a law, and in the United States it resulted in McCarthyism," the council's head, Mikhail Fedotov, was quoted by Kommersant as saying.

Fedotov pledged to bring up this issue with President Vladimir Putin personally. "On Friday we agreed with Vladimir Putin to meet, but it's not clear when this meeting will take place," he said.

The Public Chamber said it would support the bill only if the wording was changed, finding terms like "political activity" and "forming public opinion" too broad, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, meanwhile, was holding public hearings in parliament on Thursday, with the Duma due to vote on the amendments Friday during a first hearing, which the bill was widely anticipated to pass.

Veteran rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, meanwhile, pledged to get the deputies behind the bill included in the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. measure to blacklist some 60 Russian officials implicated in the prison death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Critics of the bill cautioned against examining the measure in a legal framework. "This bill is beyond the sphere of jurisprudence, it is in the realm of psychiatry," Alexander Cherkasov, one of the directors of the Memorial human rights society, told The Moscow News. "If we make a list of organizations that get foreign financing, then it would include the Russian government. The church gets funding from foreign sources."

The law, according to Cherkasov, isn't just a Soviet relic, but goes back as far as the 16th century. "The mindset of the Iron Curtain, or better yet, the times of Ivan the Terrible, who debated with Prince Kurbsky on whether he had the right to cross the border or to whom his soul belonged ­ all this is being applied to the 21st century," Cherkasov said. "This bill has nothing to do with the law."

Rather than creating conditions for systemic persecution of NGOs, however, the bill would merely increase random or selective attacks. Well-established NGOs like Memorial and Transparency International have already grown accustomed to bureaucratic hassles and were resolved to withstand them.

A previous NGO law passed during Putin's second presidential term served as a signal for regional bureaucrats to pounce on provincial Memorial offices. The new amendments will serve as another signal, activists believe.

"This will increase the bureaucratic burden. And it will inevitably create a situation of selective persecution of such organizations," Cherkasov said. "But largely, NGOs have already learned to live in such conditions."

Panfilova, of Transparency International, was resolved not to let the new amendments interfere with her work. "Neither I, nor directors of other NGOs are going to accept this pressure," she said. "It won't affect us."

Advocates of the bill insisted it was directed against foreign interference, not at domestic NGOs.

"Possible abuses are no reason not to adopt a bill," Sergei Markov, a political expert close to the Kremlin and a member of the United Russia party, told The Moscow News. "It doesn't forbid anything, it is directed toward making things more transparent and against political corruption. We have a whole number of people who present themselves as rights activists when they are actually politicians."

He singled out U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for suggesting new mechanisms of financing for NGOs.

"What, is she going to use submarines to bring this money in? The law won't force her to give up support for her allies or servants in Russia. She can give as much as she wants. She will just have to report it," Markov said.