Russian NGO head could lose job over new law

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Alina Lobzina – December 28, 2012)

Ludmila Alexeyeva, a leading Russian human rights advocate, is ready to defend the job she might lose under the newly adopted Russian response to the Magnitsky Act, she told RIA Novosti on Friday.

The bill signed by President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day prohibits holders of US passports working in NGOs engaged in political activities in Russia as well as other measures against US nationals.

Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Alexeyeva is a citizen of both Russia and the United States and may be forced to leave her post at Russia’s oldest acting human rights watchdog.

She, however, is not going to give in easily. “If they use this law against me, I will immediately go to the Constitutional Court because the law is unconstitutional,” she told RIA Novosti.

Earlier she told Vedomosti that the NGO amendment was targeting her personally.

Lev Ponomaryov, Alexeyeva’s colleague at the Moscow Helsinki Group, was also ready to back her claim. “It won’t be only her filing a lawsuit, but mine as well, so there are several appeals to the Constitutional Court,” he told the news agency.

The proposal to ban US citizens from Russian political NGOs was endorsed on Friday together with a prohibition for US nationals to adopt children in the country.

The move was put forward after the United States imposed travel bans and freeze of all assets to Russians allegedly responsible for human rights abuse earlier this year under the Magnitsky Act.

The law was named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in custody after allegedly unveiling fraudulent schemes run by tax officials.