Human Rights Gruops To Close Over ‘FOreign Agent Label

The Constitutional Court, based in St. Petersburg, has upheld the controversial law requiring some nongovernmental organizations with foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” while an affiliate of the prominent Memorial human rights group faces closure after being labeled a foreign agent by another St. Petersburg court.

The Kremlin has argued that the foreign agent law would prevent foreign governments from interfering in Russian politics, while its critics have described it as part of a massive government crackdown on civil society.

Almost all Russian NGOs targeted by the law, which was passed in 2012, have refused to comply with it, calling the legislation illegitimate and unconstitutional.

So far, the only organization that has registered as a foreign agent is a little-known group called the Promotion of Competition in CIS Countries. Some of the groups that have rejected the label have been ordered by courts to pay fines.

The Constitutional Court ruled on Apr. 8 that the law did not contradict the Constitution but struck down the provision setting 300,000-ruble ($8,403) fines for noncompliance as “excessive.”

Former Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, who had sought to repeal the law, has argued that the law violated the constitutional provisions on freedom of speech and freedom of association and that the definitions of political activities and foreign agents in its text were too vague.

Rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch, condemned the ruling.

“The ‘foreign agents’ law violates fundamental rights and is designed to silence independent groups through intimidation and humiliation,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement released by the group Apr. 9. “It is distressing that the court made no distinction between advocacy that is [in] the public interest and partisan political activity.”

Also on Apr. 8, the St. Petersburg City Court upheld a lower court ruling that recognized the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center as a foreign agent, rejecting the group’s appeal.

The St. Petersburg-based center, which focuses on protecting the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities and those of women, said last December that it would shut down because of the court case.

The group is affiliated with Moscow-based Memorial, one of Russia’s most prominent human rights organizations. Memorial, set up in 1987, focuses on researching the history of political repressions in the Soviet Union and other human rights activities.