Massive inspection of non-profit organizations in Russia let to criticism and concern in the West. High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Catherine Ashton said that such inspections “are aimed at further undermining civil society activities in the country.” Ruprecht Polenz, Chairman of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, in his interview to Deutsche Welle noted that this subject will be raised in April at a meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Foreign Ministries of France, Germany, and the United States also demanded explanations from Moscow.
Offices of Human Rights Watch and Transparency International, “Civic Assistance” and “Memorial,” “Golos” and others have been searched recently. Human rights activists consider these measures that came into force with the adoption of the Law on NGOs (November 2012) as pressure on civil society in Russia. According to the document, non-profit organizations operating in Russia must register as “foreign agents,” if they are financed from abroad.
The Day asked Liudmila Alekseeva, famous Russian human rights activist and head of Moscow Helsinki Group, to comment on the recent raids in Russia:
“This is an attempt to revive the law ‘On Noncommercial Organizations,’ that receive funding from abroad and must register as ‘foreign agents.’ We haven’t fulfilled these conditions – November 30, 2012 was the deadline [provided by the law] to do that. We didn’t do that because we are not ‘foreign agents’ and don’t want to report false information about ourselves. It is prohibited by the law. Apparently, they arranged these raids because of this. But what do they hope to find there? How are they going to declare us ‘foreign agents’ after this? It is not clear. All the information they check is available in the Ministry of Justice that has the statements from our organization, which we submit regularly, from tax authorities and other state institutions. That’s why it is not quite clear what they want to get from it. But it’s totally obvious that it is an attempt to find some materials in order to stop our activities.”
What do you think about the reaction of the West to this? Will this affect the Russian government?
“Of course, the West expressed concern about this and they sympathize with us. But I would not say that made an uproar. Let’s see what happens. The next step is the meeting of the European leaders with the Russian higher-ups. There is information that this issue will be discussed there too. It is hard to say [whether it will affect the position of the Russian government]. Sometimes state authorities change their positions in situations like this. But sometimes [Russian authorities] insist on the decisions they made.”
In your opinion, what is the role of the society and the opposition in these processes – supporting NGOs that operate in Russia?
“Independent mass media make detailed reports about this whole situation with compassion to us. But there are not very many media of such type left in Russia. The rest have largely ignored this problem. There also mass media that mention these events in a tone hostile to us…”
Do you feel the support of the society and the opposition?
“Our society is active. But at this point we’ve only been inspected. State authorities have not committed any actions that could, in fact, awaken the society.”
