Foreign funding alone not enough to define NGO as foreign agent – judge

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Interfax – April 8, 2014) The mere fact that a nonprofit organization receives foreign funding cannot provide grounds for identifying this organization as a foreign agent, Constitutional Court Judge Sergei Knyazev told reporters on Tuesday.

Such an organization will however find itself in the group of foreign agents if it engages in political activities, he said.

“The status of foreign agent will be given to a nonprofit organization, after this legislation is enforced, if it receives foreign funding and engages in political activities. An organization that has received foreign funding does not necessarily become a foreign agent immediately. Only those organizations will be deemed as such that intend to engage in politics,” Knyazev said, while commenting on the Constitutional Court’s ruling pronounced on Tuesday.

The definition of “political activities,” laid down in the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations, helps identify whether or not an organization engages in politics, he said.

“Political activities” is not a general term, he said. “It only applies to relations regulated and identified by this law,” Knyazev said.

 

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