Russian Rights Council Asks Prosecutor To Suspend Checks On NGOs

(RIA Novosti – October 21, 2013) The Russian presidential human rights council has sent a letter to Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka, asking for checks on NGOs to be suspended until a complaint about the law “On foreign agents” is considered in the Constitutional Court, council head Mikhail Fedotov told state news agency RIA Novosti on 21 October.

“Today we sent a letter to the prosecutor-general on this issue and we hope that our proposal will be taken with understanding,” Fedotov said.

Fedotov said previously that the decision was taken at a meeting of the permanent commission for the development of NGOs to ask the prosecutor-general’s office to suspend checks on NGOs until the Constitutional Court hearing.

He noted that both President Vladimir Putin and the prosecutor-general himself have spoken about improving the law on NGOs.

On 21 July 2012 President Vladimir Putin signed a law that requires nongovernmental organizations that receive funding from abroad and engage in political activity to register with the Justice Ministry as “foreign agents”. The law also requires “foreign agent” NGOs to submit regular detailed financial reports, which critics say is time-consuming and costly for small organizations. The law came into force on 21 November 2012, and from early March 2013 hundreds of NGOs around the country were raided after Putin demanded in a speech on 14 February that the law be enforced. Advocates of the law say it is necessary to prevent foreign-funded meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs. Its critics, however, see it as an instrument to stigmatize NGOs and crack down on civil society.