No pressure on NGOs in Russia, Justice Ministry says
Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview that Russian legislation has gotten more lax towards NGOs over the past few years, and has consistently moved towards “softening and liberalization.”
Answering a question about whether the Ministry of Justice would support reforms to decrease government pressure on “foreign agents” and NGOs, Alexander Konovalov said that the ministry does not agree “that such pressure is being exerted” at all.
According to Konovalov, the number of registered NGOs is growing each year and the government has put in place a far-reaching system of grants supporting socially significant projects.
Konovalov also said that he has always favored targeted attention to specific NGOs, calling for “maximum freedom for civil society to undertake valuable or neutral initiatives, and more focused and targeted attention towards those who violate the law and those who undertake certain kinds of activities.”
As for NGOs which function as ‘foreign agents,’ the law does not impose any extra burdens, limitations or bans on any kind of activities, does not discriminate against them, but rather imposes a transparency for receiving foreign funding, in line with international practices.
The law on “foreign agents” was passed in 2012 and it requires NGOs that receive funding from abroad to enter a registry and submit themselves to debilitating levels of bureaucratic scrutiny and to label their work as done by “foreign agents.” If an organization which fits the description of “foreign agent” fails to register as such, they can be placed on the registry after a court ruling. There are currently 67 organizations on the registry, including the Russian office of Transparency International and the Sakharov Center.
On May 25, the private Russian nonprofit Dynasty Foundation was registered by the Justice Ministry as a foreign agent. The next day, the head of the foundation Dmitry Zimin announced that he will no longer fund this foundation. The news caused an uproar among researchers and educators in Russia. On May 27, Zimin told the newspaper Vedomosti that he would reconsider and continue the foundation’s activities only if the Ministry of Justice reverses its decision and takes the foundation off the “foreign agents” registry, and if he gets a formal personal apology.
The Dynasty Foundation was established in 2002 by Dmitry Zimin, former CEO of Vimpelcom Inc. (a leading company in Russia’s telecom market). The Foundation allocated $10.5 million per year in grants for research and education projects in Russia. The Board of Directors will meet on June 8 to make a final decision about the foundation’s future.