Post date: Mar 27, 2013 1:21:17 PM
Russian tax officials and prosecutors search offices of human rights NGOs in Moscow - a move that activists say is part of a state campaign to stifle dissent.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA (MARCH 27, 2013) (REUTERS) - Russian tax officials and prosecutors on Wednesday (March 27) held inspections of various NGOs and human rights organizations in Moscow - a move that activists say is part of a state campaign to stifle dissent.
Since returning to the Kremlin in May, President Vladimir Putin has signed laws to tighten controls on non-governmental organizations, requiring those with foreign funding to register as "foreign agents", a term echoing Cold War era hostilities.The Kremlin says the legislation is needed to prevent groups from spying for foreign governments, but Putin's critics see raids by state authorities ranging from tax officials to fire inspectors as harassment.
Several dozen NGOs have been searched in recent weeks. On Monday (March 25) London-based human rights advocacy group Amnesty International was searched, and on Tuesday (March 26) Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights organization, faced an inspection.
A day later the Moscow offices of Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, and Civic Assistance all faced inspections.
"Last week and early this week practically all our (NGO) colleagues have had inspections. We expected that they would come to us. Nonetheless we worked as usual. Today I was at a meeting and they called to say (the inspection) had come. I had to cancel my meeting and come here. Here, as was known from what our colleagues from other organizations had told us, a set of organizations was introduced to us - someone from the Moscow prosecutor's office, someone from the Ministry of Justice, and someone from the tax inspection," the director of Transparency International Elena Panfilova told Reuters.
"This is wrong. It's politically short-sighted and wrong. To put pressure on human rights and anti-corruption organizations in the country is the best guarantee of a corrupt company. So, yes, pretty much everyone here is fighting for corruption. We are trying, with all our strength, to do something about this," Panfilova added.
Rights campaigners say the searches are probably aimed at gathering evidence of activities that would oblige them to register as "foreign agents" under the law.
The penalties for failing to comply include six months' suspension without a court order and, for individuals, up to three years in jail.
"This is undoubtedly done to put pressure, it's undoubtedly done to put pressure on civil society. There can't be any sort of a plan here, because these inspections are being conducted en masse - what kind of a plan can that be? And then there is the intention of the Ministry of Justice to inspect social organizations. This plan should be posted on the website a year in advance. At the beginning of the year you know that your organization will be inspected this year. Here no one was informed about anything - it came out of the blue. I think that they themselves don't even understand the point in this. The inspectors themselves don't understand the goal," Civic Assistance co-founder Svetlana Gannushkina told Reuters.
"We work very honestly with federal migration services. I am a member of the state commission for migration politics. We are not working against our government - I'm afraid that our government is working against our people. This is a different issue, and I think what we see is this new law - we'll put it in quotation marks - the law 'against foreign agents' as it's widely known, we see this law in action," Gannushkina added.
Russia's leading rights organizations, including Memorial, election-monitoring body Golos and theMoscow Helsinki Group, said they would refuse to register in defiance of the law and would challenge it at the European Court of Human Rights.
Germany complained to Russia on Tuesday the tax inspections of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including two German think-tanks, saying the action could harm bilateral ties already strained by the Cyprus crisis.
The Kremlin denies cracking down on critics but the searches have prompted criticism within Russiaand from the West.
Putin's own advisory council on human rights has asked Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika to explain the wave of searches.