Russia Continues NGO Crackdown With Surprise Raid On Amnesty International
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Russian prosecutors and tax authorities on Monday conducted a surprise “audit” at the Moscow office of human rights group Amnesty International’s (AI), reported the New York Times, demanding for a list of documents and tax forms to be handed over – in what activists have now described as a month-long state clampdown on nongovernmental groups.
Russian prosecutors and tax authorities on Monday conducted a surprise “audit” at the Moscow office of human rights group Amnesty International’s (AI), reported the New York Times, demanding for a list of documents and tax forms to be handed over – in what activists have now described as a month-long state clampdown on nongovernmental groups.
The head of Amnesty’s office in Russia, Sergei Nikitin, told NYT that officials had rushed in unannounced in the early hours of Monday morning, where they claimed that they were conducting checks if the real activities of AI matched its stated ones.
Nikitin, who leads the Russian branch of one of the world’s most prominent campaigners against human rights abuse, added that the authorities were soon followed by a television crew from Russia’s state-controlled NTV network – who were not allowed in, but were “knocking, calling, and creating additional difficulties for us in this unpleasant situation.”
“They’re (the authorities were) sitting and waiting for me to bring the originals and copies,” Nikitin said. “This is ongoing because we, of course, were not expecting them today.”
[quote] “They don’t have any concrete complaints. They say it’s a regular check and other cliché phrases,” he added.[/quote]According to the Associated Press, some 2,000 NGOs have had their Russian offices searched and raided over the last month alone. The searches reportedly also began after president Vladimir Putin had given a speech urging the Federal Security Service to focus attention on groups receiving foreign funding, which he said were “putting pressure on Russia.”
Other rights organizations, such as the For Human Rights group and Public Verdict, were also searched on Monday, according to AP.
Nikitin told the Wall Street Journal that this was the first time that AI had faced any serious surprise probe by Russian authorities since setting up operations in the country in the 1990s.
[quote]“I think first of all that this is harassment, threatening,” he said. “All of this is a form of scaring us. It’s a way for them to show that they aren’t taking their eyes off of us.“[/quote]“You can call it a toughening of the government’s relationship to rights organizations, because in the past we have never faced these smear campaigns,” he added.
Although a statement by the Russian Justice Ministry, as cited by Russia Today News, described the action as a “legal reaction as provided by the law”, even Mikhail Fedotov, Putin’s chief human-rights advisor, has criticized the recent surge in audits.
After Putin returned to the presidency last May, the parliament also backed a law requiring all NGOs who receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents” – a term with negative connotations.
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Lev Ponomaryov, head of For Human Rights, believed that the audits were largely for show, but were nevertheless disturbing as the Russian Parliament had laid the basis for a police state.
[quote]There is “a constant threat hanging over us (NGOs),” said Ponomaryov. “If hundreds of organizations across the country are being audited like this, even though the Committee for Human Rights for the president says it is illegal, you have to wonder what is going on in the country.”[/quote]
