In early May Russian
President Vladimir Putin signed executive orders that give the
Justice Ministry and the Federal Registration Service broad powers
of control over non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The
mechanisms for enforcing the new NGO law are now in place.
The Federal Registration Service, whose staff has swelled by
as much as five thousand, will conduct check-ups of an NGO's
activity to verify its compliance with its objectives stated in its
founding documents. The Justice Ministry, to which the Federal
Registration Service is subordinate, will determine the order of
these check-ups.
The idea for this NGO law
originated within the Kremlin administration in 2005, and the law
embodies the present ruling elite's fears of the "color
revolutions" on the post-Soviet space, such as those in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, where NGOs took the center stage. The
Kremlin was especially concerned with Western NGOs and foreign
funding of Russian NGOs. Putin repeatedly indicated that the
Kremlin would not allow financing political activities in Russia
from abroad.
In early November 2005 a
group of the Kremlin-connected State Duma deputies submitted a
harsh bill designed to tighten state control over NGOs. The bill
envisioned compulsory registration for NGOs followed by the
submission of information about their performance and the filing of
fiscal reports for scrutiny by a registration agency. The bill's
authors proposed to prohibit the operations of foreign NGOs'
representative offices in Russia. These foreign offices would be
required to register their branches in Russia as Russian public
policy associations.
The bill put before the
Duma raised a tide of protests both in the Russian democratic
community and in the West. Most Russian NGO leaders decried the
bill as unconstitutional and counter to the standards of civil
society.
Western leaders including
George W. Bush repeatedly expressed concerns about this
anti-democratic law with President Putin. The U.S. Congress passed
a resolution denouncing the bill, and an avalanche of protests from
American and other foreign public policy organizations assailed the
State Duma and the Kremlin.
Nevertheless, the State
Duma put through a first reading of this bill, and Putin and
parliament were forced to reckon with the flaming protest at home
and abroad. Putin suggested that the State Duma soften tough
provisions of the NGO bill in the first reading, and he proposed to
do away with the requirement that foreign NGOs register their
Russian branches as Russian public policy associations.
The passage of the law was
preceded by a media campaign initiated by the Russian secret
services that leveled charges at a number of Russian NGOs for
having contacts with Western intelligence services. Its purpose was
to justify the need for a stiff control over NGO
financing.
On December 23, 2005 the
State Duma approved the amendments to the NGO bill that took
account of President Putin's remarks. On December 26, the
federation Council, the upper House of parliament, endorsed the
bill. This bill, however, introduced a new requirement-foreign NGOs
would have to notify the Federal Registration Service of their
incoming funds and the way these funds were spent. The bill also
imposed penalties and sanctions-up to filing a suit to shut an NGO
down-for failing to submit this information.
The passage of this
softened version of the bill did not quell the protests inside the
country or abroad. On January 10, 2006, President Putin signed the
bill into law in total secrecy, even as he was hosting German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had also been critical of the
document. The circumstances of the signing became known after a few
days. Clearly, Putin did not want to call Merkel and the whole
world's attention to his anti-democratic decision.
The NGO law came into
effect on April 18. It will regulate the activity of over 500,000
NGOs in Russia, including148,000 public policy organizations and
5,000 foreign NGO branches. To manage these oversight duties, the
Justice Ministry has employed a 5,000-strong bureaucratic staff, in
addition to the 1,000-strong NGO registration staff.
As NGOs feared, the
regulations issued by the government agencies in response to the
law have introduced harsh restrictions on NGO performance. From now
on, NGOs will have to report every detail of their activities. An
activity report form is seven small-print pages long and includes
accounts of performance, both of the substance of an NGO's work and
its expenses. If money is spent on putting on events, the NGO must
detail their number, the topics, and participation. Foreign
organizations, such the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office, also
must indicate the cost of office supplies. The regulations will
significantly increase an NGO's expenses.
Russian rights
organizations are unanimous in their belief that the worst
expectations of this new law are justified. If an NGO cannot be
banned directly, the red tape, all-out control, endless check-ups,
and a stepped-up financial burden could smother it.
What America Can
Do to Support Freedom in Russia
To promote democracy and
arrest Russia's drift to autocracy the Bush Administration should
take a resolute action. It should do the following:
-
Conduct permanent
monitoring of the freedom situation in Russia;
-
Evaluate the scale and
nature of the abuse of individual freedom in Russia;
-
React decisively and
protest violations of basic freedoms;
-
Engage the Russian
government in public discussions on every level on the status of
freedom in Russia;
-
Criticize the NGO law
and its implementation practices at the G8 Summit in St.
Petersburg;
-
Encourage the U.S. OSCE
Commission to hold regular hearings on the status of freedom in
Russia;
-
Call for sanctions
against Russia in case of its violent abuse of freedom; and
-
Provide broad support to
the freedom movement in Russia by contacts with freedom fighters,
inviting them to international forums, rendering them political and
moral assistance.
Russian NGOs and foreign
NGO representative offices in Russia remain the stronghold of
nascent civil society and freedom in Russia. The work of these
organizations cannot be strangled by the intrusions of the Russian
government.
Yevgeny Volk, Ph.D., is
Coordinator of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow Office.