Russia
17.07.15
Statements

Press Release: New legislative and administrative moves to restrict and criminalise human rights defenders

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Paris-Geneva,July 17, 2015. In the past months, new lawswere adopted by legislative bodies to further restrict the space of civilsociety, including human rights work conducted in the country. The Observatoryexpresses its utmost concerns over these new developments, in particular thedrawing up of a “patriotic stop list” by the Parliament, the labelling of the CommitteeAgainst Torture (CAT) as “foreign agent” and the introduction of two new piecesof legislation providing police and security forces with new means to suppressand repress social dissent.

OnJuly 8, 2015, the Upper Chamber of the Russian Parliament (Federal Council)requested the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to checkthe compliance of 12 foreign non-profit organisations with the new law on“undesirable foreign organisations”. The law bans the activities of foreignNGOs that “threaten the constitutional order, security of the State or itsdefence capacity” and criminalizes those who work for them. The FederalCouncil's list includes several American organisations such as the Open SocietyFoundation (OSF), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Freedom House,the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National DemocraticInstitute (NDI), two NGOs uniting Ukrainian diaspora around the world, and aninformal group monitoring human rights in Crimea. The inclusion of the latterunregistered group with no organisational structure or staff demonstrates theclumsiness of the Russian decision makers in their efforts to silence allcritical voices.

Onthe same day, the Regional Court of Nijegorod (Nijegorodskaya oblast) upheldthe previous city court decision to include the Committee Against Torture(CAT), OMCT member organisation, into the list of 'foreign agents'. The lawaims at further stigmatizing civil society organisations, forces NGOs toregister as 'foreign agents' if they receive foreign funding and engage in socalled “political activity aiming to change state legislation”. Theorganisation defended itself in vain.

“Theaim of the authorities is to form a mass of obedient citizens isolated from therest of the world, deprived of independent sources of information and without apossibility to stand up for their rights”,declared OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock.

Inaddition, a legislative amendment proposed on July 3, 2015, by members of theFederal Council would render any form of civil society protest even riskierthan before. If passed, the amendment to the law “on the Federal SecurityBureau” (FSB - former KGB) will allow agents to use lethal weapons “to preventmass disorder”, “to deliver to police stations persons who committed anadministrative offence” and “to arrest any person” who undermines the abilityof security officers to perform their duties.

“These recent events attest of a particularly gloomy picture for human rightsdefenders. New legislative initiatives might further restrict freedom ofassembly and any form of social dissent”,said FIDH President Karim Lahidji.

The Observatory for the Protection ofHuman Rights Defenders (OBS) was created in 1997 by FIDH and OMCT. Theobjective of this programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy to situationsof repression against human rights defenders.

For more information, pleasecontact:
· FIDH: Lucie Kroening/Arthur Manet: +33 (0) 1 43 55 25 18
· OMCT: Miguel MartínZumalacárregui: + 41 (0) 22 809 49 24

Tags

Threats, intimidation and harassment
Human rights defenders

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