February 9, 2006 | Read Time: 7 minutes
Many charity officials have financial or legal woes. But few have troubles that can top those of Irina
Yasina, program director at Open Russia.
Her group’s founder, board chairman, and sole donor is in a Siberian penal colony. Prosecutors raided the charity’s offices in Moscow last fall as part of a money-laundering investigation. Ms. Yasina is convinced her phones are tapped. Her budget is shrinking. And a new law threatens to put Open Russia, one of the few grant makers providing money to democracy-building groups in Russia, out of business.
Open Russia was founded in 2001 by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who became a billionaire as the former head of the Yukos oil company. The charity modeled itself after the Open Society Institute, the grant maker founded by the financier George Soros, which operated its own foundation in Russia until 2003. Open Russia has spent about $60-million on projects in areas including human rights, journalism, legal training, information technology, education, and culture.
But in a case that was widely criticized by human-rights groups as politically motivated, Mr. Khodorkovsky last October began serving an eight-year prison sentence for tax evasion and fraud. He was able to provide $12-million to Open Russia for 2006, but that is down from $18-million in 2005 — and prospects for 2007 are unclear, Ms. Yasina says. The raid on Open Russia’s offices came as part of an investigation into Yukos’s finances.
Washington Visit
Ms. Yasina says Russia’s new law governing nonprofit groups, which takes effect in April, could make things even worse. It specifically bars anyone who has been “convicted and incarcerated by the decision of a court of law” from founding a nongovernmental organization, or even participating in one — a provision that appears to cover Mr. Khodorkovsky.
During a visit to Washington last month, Ms. Yasina met with officials at the State Department, as well as with groups such as the Congressional Caucus on Human Rights, International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the U.S. Helsinki Commission, to raise awareness of the law and ask for help. She also met with the Open Society Institute, in New York, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in Miami.
Open Society has already offered assistance. In December it awarded $750,000 to three programs that Open Russia helped to establish — a regional journalists’ association, a network of public-policy schools, and a legal-advocacy group. “It was a very great symbol for us,” Ms. Yasina says.
Ms. Yasina, 41, has a doctorate in economics and was a journalist for the Interfax news agency, The Moscow News, and The Moscow Times before she was tapped by Mr. Khodorkovsky to run his foundation.
As a child growing up in the Soviet Union, she remembers reading The Three Musketeers — and crying because she thought she would never be able to travel to France. “It was a tragedy for me because I wanted to see Paris, I wanted to see those streets where the Musketeers were walking,” she says.
The fall of communism opened up a whole new world to her, including many trips to Paris. But she is pessimistic about Russia’s democratic future. “After this open air, we have stagnation again,” she says.
Yevgeniy Khorishko, press attache at the Russian embassy in Washington, denied that Mr. Khodorkovsky had been investigated for political reasons. “Many Russian politicians, including the president, prime minister, and minister of foreign affairs, many times declared there is no political basis for this case — purely economic issues.”
In an interview with The Chronicle, Ms. Yasina discussed the challenges facing Open Russia and other nonprofit groups operating in Russia.
What are you telling the groups you are meeting with in the United States?
We are the biggest, the only private Russian foundation that supports human rights and free press and civil-society education programs. After Khodorkovsky was arrested, every other Russian philanthropist with whom I talked decided to stop their activities in this field. His example was a very clear symbol for everybody; it’s like a red light. I tried to explain that civil society in Russia is very pressed now by our authorities. We need some help to survive and this help may be both in money and political pressure. Maybe political pressure is the first because if political pressure is enough, maybe — I don’t believe it, but maybe — our authorities will stop.
What would you like the State Department to do?
Just to renew programs for supporting democracy in Russia. We are not a democracy. We were five years ago, but not now. There is no freedom of press at all. All TV networks are under strong censorship of the Kremlin. There are no elections of governors, there are no elections for Duma — not elections from an American point of view, because they’re under very strong control.
How do you communicate with Mr. Khodorkovsky?
Lawyers. But it’s very difficult. It’s really impossible now, because it’s six hours by plane, then 15 hours by train, and then maybe you are permitted to meet him. Maybe.
Has there been any effort to shut you down?
Yes. Not directly, but the government conducts a lot of tax investigations. During the last 12 months, there were 20 tax investigations — the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Justice, Social Service, I don’t know, the fire brigade, everybody — against Open Russia. We are absolutely transparent. We have an audit from an international audit firm, so they can’t find anything. There is not any violation. But they keep working.
What about some of the groups you give money to? Have they had any problems?
Yes, they have tax investigations, too.
What’s going on in the rest of Russia, besides Open Russia? Are nonprofit organizations starting to emerge?
Yes, they are very active now. After perestroika and after all these years of economic reforms, we mainly thought in Russia about surviving. There is a little bit better life, there is. And, of course, people are getting more and more active, not politically in the sense of politics, but in the sense of policy. It’s getting interesting for them to be involved. Not for everyone and not everywhere in Russia. But we have very active regions.
What impact will the new law have on international organizations?
It depends. [Some groups are] connected only with culture; there will not be a problem for them. But for [human-rights groups], there will be a problem because they are connected with politics. In our new law, there is a very vague definition — actually, there is no definition — about what is political activity.
Have groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had much of an impact on civil society?
No. Because the first ideas of this law were born inside of the Secret Service, in the FSB, the former KGB. The idea of this — that everybody from outside, from abroad, is mainly spies — is very deeply inside of it. I said no, but it’s not true 100 percent. I don’t know why [Under Secretary of State] Nicolas Burns came to Moscow just after the first reading in Parliament of this law — maybe because the influence of international human-rights organizations was very strong. And only after Mr. Burns’s visit to Moscow, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decided to postpone a little bit and to make some changes according to international and foreign organizations.
What are you expecting to happen now that this law has passed?
I am waiting for the worst. But I have been waiting since the moment of Khodorkovsky’s arrest, so maybe yes, maybe no. We are constantly in the situation of really big uncertainty, and this law is very un-concrete. But it’s not only about us. The question is for all human rights and civil society in Russia, human-rights activities, because we need support — political support, financial support — because now we are so pressed. The pressure is tremendous inside Russia. We need to survive.
