Federation Council to present ‘patriotic stop-list’ of 12 NGOs to Prosecutor General’s Office, Foreign Ministry

(Interfax – July 7, 2015)

The ‘patriotic stop-list’ drawn up by the Federation Council consists of twelve foreign NGOs, Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko has said at a press conference.

“At our meeting tomorrow we will pass a related appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Russian Foreign Ministry and will present our patriotic stop-list consisting of twelve foreign organizations operating on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the chairperson said.

In the words of Matviyenko, the list is not full. “This list is not complete; it aims at prevention. We are aware of the activity of these organizations, which is of explicitly political nature,” the chairperson of the upper parliament chamber explained.

In her words, the Prosecution Service and the Foreign Ministry will check the degree of compliance of the foreign NGOs’ activity with Russian legislation. “In the case this activity violates Russian legislation, they will be put on the list of undesirable organizations,” Matviyenko underlined.

She said the decision [to draw up stop-lists] was made at the initiative of regions. “We are receiving plenty of appeals from regions which are concerned about operation of certain NGOs on their territory, [NGOs] are funded from abroad but they are engaged in political activity, and this cannot help but be a source of concern,” the chairperson said.