August 3, 2006 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Nonprofit organizations had hoped the world’s richest and most democratic nations would use last month’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg as a forum to speak out against a law that imposes new restrictions on charities and foundations that work in Russia.
But that did not happen. Western leaders were soft-spoken about the law, which some of them had previously denounced as an erosion of civil liberties. Some leaders said they raised concerns with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, but in private.
That means that nongovernmental groups, often referred to as NGO’s, are on their own between now and October, when most must re-register under the terms of the new law — which allows authorities to shut down groups whose activities run counter to Russia’s national, social, or cultural interests.
The definition of what constitutes a violation is vague, which enables authorities to interpret the law broadly.
“Of course we expected much more from the G-8 leaders,” said Diederik Lohman, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, in New York, a group whose work has not been received well by the Kremlin.
“It’s sad. Essentially they’re willing to express some concern about the NGO law,” he said, “but when it comes down to it, they’re unwilling to send a clear and unequivocal message to Putin that he shouldn’t destroy the NGO community.”
Legal Aid Offered
The most high-profile gesture of support during the summit came from Cherie Blair, the wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Mrs. Blair, who also is a human-rights lawyer, met with representatives from a dozen nonprofit groups on the last day of the summit. She offered to assist activists if they choose to challenge the new law in the European Court of Human Rights.
President Bush also met with nonprofit representatives. However, that meeting, on the eve of the summit with representatives of 15 organizations, did not result in the kind of concrete support that some activists say is needed, and some say is unrealistic.
“There are currently no instruments of influence on the Russian authorities to make them more free, and more open, toward NGO activities,” said Irina Yasina, head of Open Russia, who attended the meeting. “I’m very skeptical. I think that the hardest times are awaiting us.”
Open Russia, which was founded by an oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was once one of the most influential nonprofit groups in the country. But following the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Khodorkovsky, the charity halted its philanthropic work after the government froze its bank accounts (The Chronicle, February 9).
Money Laundering
Russia’s new law, which took effect in April, is aimed at curtailing money laundering and financing of terrorism and political activities by foreign entities, according to Mr. Putin, who has accused some groups of serving as fronts for foreign-intelligence agencies.
By foreign entities, the Kremlin means countries, including the United States, which it says helped bankroll the popular revolts that toppled governments in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine.
“This law was meant to create order in this sphere, not to stiffen” regulations, Mr. Putin told several hundred activists last month at a meeting in Moscow.
Russian charities are now required to report all money received from foreign organizations, and to show how it was spent. “Instead of the on-the-ground work we’re here to do, we are doomed to be consumed by a nightmare” of filing reports, Oleg Orlov, of Memorial, a Russian human-rights group, told The Moscow Times.
The reporting required of domestic groups, nevertheless, is less onerous than that demanded of foreign ones, which are required to submit detailed financial reports four times a year, as well as annual forecasts of all planned activities for the coming year.
Some organizations probably will hire staff members to cope with the demands.
“It’s all quite overwhelming, and it may very well be that we would have to hire another person,” said Carol Sorrenti, director of education programs at the Moscow office of the U.S. group IREX, or International Research and Exchanges Board.
With little access to new funds, Ms. Sorrenti said, “I suspect we would see a program being cut because there is less money.”
Enforcement Struggles
Charities and advocacy groups are not the only ones that will be struggling to cope. The volume of paperwork will be so enormous that the Federal Registration Service, part of the Ministry of Justice, will be unable to spend a lot of time considering the applications from each of the country’s approximately 450,000 nonprofit groups, said Alexei Zhafyarov, who heads the new oversight department, speaking at an April meeting with nonprofit leaders.
Some nonprofit leaders suspect limited enforcement was always part of the plan.
“There is every indication that the way it is going to be enforced will be selective, so the NGO’s that are making a lot of noise and causing a lot of problems in Russia are going to be held to a very strict reading of the law, whereas those that…do soup kitchens for pensioners are unlikely to be touched,” said Mr. Lohman of Human Rights Watch.
Ms. Sorrenti, of IREX, does not anticipate problems with re-registration. “My feeling is that a lot of the programs that we administer are ones that are really not out of favor with the Russian government, so many of those programs,” such as exchange programs between universities in the United States and Russia, will not face problems.
Mr. Lohman is less confident concerning Human Rights Watch.
“Basically, under the new law, they could say our activities are not in the interests of Russia, and close us down,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure our offices remain open. We don’t think it’s going to be an easy year.”
