Post date: Jul 21, 2012 3:46:22 PM
MOSCOW, RUSSIA (JULY 21, 2012) (REUTERS) - Russia's top human rights activist said that he and his organisation would resist and fight against the new NGO "foreign agents" law signed by President Vladimir Putin on Saturday (July 21).
Prominent Russian human rights activist says his movement will use all legal means to fight the new law signed by President Putin on Saturday which brands NGOs funded from abroad as "foreign agents".
The law will tighten controls on civil rights groups funded from abroad, a step opponents say is part of a campaign to suppress dissent.
The law, which was passed by the upper house of parliament on Wednesday (July 18), will force non-governmental organisations (NGOs) receiving financial help from outside Russia and engaging in "political activity" to register with the Justice Ministry as "foreign agents" and to file a report to officials every quarter.
"The adopted law is not legal. That is why of course, we, who call on the Russian citizens to defend their rights, we need to defend our rights as well, naturally using all legal means. That is why we will do it. We will not obey this law, we announce a campaign of civil disobedience and we will fight against this law with all legal means," Russian prominent human rights activist and head of 'For Human Rights' movement, Lev Ponomarev, said on Saturday.
Opposition groups say Putin is trying to silence groups whose criticism of his human rights record has undercut his credibility and helped fuel seven months of protests against his rule, the biggest since he came to power in 2000.
The human rights activist believes the laws recently adopted by the Russian parliament increasing the fines for participation in the rallies, introducing so-called 'black lists' of Internet websites, introducing fines for libel or slander in mass media and the latest NGO law are all aimed at increasing pressure on civil society.
"There is a series of laws - four laws - which were adopted by the ruling party, the United Russia, in a state of hysteria. It seems like they foresee their forthcoming demise and want either to prevent it or to inflict as much harm as possible on the society. All the four laws target the civil society," Ponomarev said.
He thinks that Russia copycat the policy of internal pressure of neighbouring Belarus, ruled for 18 years by President Alexander Lukashenko who was dubbed by Washington 'Europe's last dictator'.
"Putin is going down (Alexander) Lukashenko's path. Putin thinks that he will manage to repeat Lukashenko's experience when he dispersed the rally and arrested the political opposition, and by doing that he in fact destroyed the opposition. That is why he is trying to launch a repressive political campaign based on the (opposition) rally held on May 6 near Bolotnaya Square," he added referring to the multiple criminal cases initiated against participants and organisers of the opposition rally held in Moscow on May 6 this year.
Putin, a former KGB spy, has dominated Russia for 12 years as prime minister or president and he won another six-year stint in March.
Earlier in July, the U.S. State Department voiced "deep concern" about the NGO law - and was promptly rebuked by Moscow for "gross interference", an exchange that underlined the impact the bill has had on already strained relations.
Putin said on Thursday (July 19) that laws that could open up competition in Russia's political system must be implemented with care, suggesting he remains wary about reforms introduced after the wave of protests.
In April then-president Dmitry Medvedev signed off on a law that eased regulations on the registration of political parties, cutting the required number of members in a party to 500 from the previous 40,000.
The law was aimed at appeasing demonstrators who had taken to the streets after accusations of voting fraud in a parliamentary election in December which gave the Putin-supported United Russia party a slim parliamentary majority.