NKO Strikes Back
As soon as the State Duma passed a law on NGOs - foreign agents, a deafening noise arose in the foreign press with a wave of the conductor's wand: “Carrr-ra-Raul! In Russia, the prrrrr-r-rava of man is violated again Freedom of speech is enslaved! ”What is there in foreign? Many Russian media outlets also complained about how now the highly respected representatives of a whole host of non-profit organizations explain to people, and why did they need to take money from Big Brother to conduct their political activities. Recall that 13 of July of this year 374 deputy of the Lower Chamber of the Russian Parliament voted that now all NGOs that conduct political activities in Russia and receive funding from abroad will have to be referred to as foreign agents and provide information on which needs went foreign financing. 374 deputy - it's all the Duma faction, except for "Fair Russia" ...
Yes, of course, such a concept as an “agent”, and, moreover, a “foreign agent”, our main opposition human rights defenders have a hearing loss. Well, it turns out, representatives of those NGOs thought the question with which the State Duma decided, the Western virtue will give us a money, and we will have to report to the authorities and the people that they wanted to organize another March of Quintillion or arrange Chess tournament of funny games with riot police under the slogan “Kasparov and Nemtsov are our presidents, and all the rest - let's say goodbye!” Well, no, they thought political NCOs and decided to ask that same conductor to wave his wand and give a sign - to persecute, persecute, and once again persecute the adopted law in the print press, the Internet, on the sites of the legislative bodies of excessively democratic states.
But as they say, it was just the beginning. Our deputies, as it turned out, are also not stitched, and therefore they decided to throw another bill in the capacity of, so to speak, the control shot. So that the media did not particularly wander in terms of submission to the designated conductor, it was decided to raise the issue of the existence of periodicals, which can also be called a foreign agent. In general, everything is approximately as follows: foreign funding is received by the mass media and it systematically analyzes the political situation in Russia and the world - be so kind, gentlemen is the mass media, sign that your child is a foreign agent.
After what was raised in the press during this legislative proposal, the deputies decided to hold off the bill and withdraw it, as if something had not happened. Quietly, quietly, quietly - first digest NPOs, and we will return to this issue when the summer heat ceases to overheat the already hot heads.
However, it becomes again unclear why some Russian media are so concerned about this very status of “foreign agents” (readers are well aware of the names of these media). After all, if you in your journal give advice on the proper cultivation of dill and zucchini and at the same time receive funds for the development of your “electronic gardening”, say, from Greenpeace, then no one is going to oblige you to register as a foreign agent. Well, since you give abroad advice on growing zucchini and immediately call on Russians to arm themselves with larger zucchini and attack the local parliament building, then everything should be clear by themselves. You know, we still lacked the Kabachkov revolution ...
The most striking thing is that the Russian bill on foreign agents from NGOs and the media is not some kind of know-how of Russian bureaucratic thought. Thought, in other countries, due to its bureaucracy, it can also give a head start to the thoughts of our deputies. In fact, our lawmakers took advantage of this handicap.
More than once in the press there was information that the Russian law on NGOs - foreign agents is actually a photocopy of the law that exists in the United States. The American version is called the Foreign Agents Registration Act or FARA. And this very “Farah”, let's say, has been highlighting for more than 70 years, all those organizations that receive foreign funding and conduct political or even near-political activities in the United States of America. It is noteworthy that during the Second World War, it was on the basis of this law that it was possible to bring to a logical conclusion more than two dozen criminal cases involving organizations - foreign agents operating in the United States.
Since 1966, the use of FARA has not led to high-profile criminal cases, but it has made it possible for every ordinary American to know about any non-profit organizations that conduct their business with foreign money. Since 2007 in the USA (at the Department of Justice), an expanded database has begun to be created, using which one can find reports on the activities of a non-profit organization in the status of a foreign agent. The database even includes such organizations that are indirectly controlled from abroad, but at the same time have the status of a foreign agent. With the help of FARA, US citizens learned that organizations operating in the country that conduct their activities with the active support of, for example, the Irish Republican Army or the Kashmir separatists. Based on this, the activities of these legal entities were recognized as extremist and the activity was stopped in full compliance with US law.
By the way, in the United States, FARA prohibits those who are members of organizations with foreign funding from participating in the political election process. The law itself actually says that if anyone is going to participate in the elections, then he should not take any foreign investments (here the American FARA would have worked well with the ex-president of France, Mr. Sarkozy, although France has its own tools ...) Prohibition for participation in elections with foreign funding of the candidate and his supporters in the Russian law on NGOs. This is perhaps its main difference from the American version. But if so, then it turns out that the Russian legislative act is just childish babble in comparison with the “fire-breathing American“ FARA ”... So why are our political NGOs so agitated? ..
The concern of those Russian non-profit structures that wish to receive funding from abroad, but do not wish to declare their status as foreign agents, is still understandable. The fear is that these organizations will simply cease to be perceived by the Russian people as engaging in activities for the good of the country, defending their interests, if they were, of course, perceived by them ...
Representatives of a number of NGOs (“Memorial”, “For Human Rights”) expressed the opinion that they are not going to register as foreign agents, although they also don’t want to refuse foreign funding. And indeed, how can it be abandoned when all activity is built on it only on it? It turns out that Memorial and For Human Rights are simply going to violate Russian legislation and at the same time, it is natural to appeal to the West, which itself actively uses such laws. This may help them in the West to get the glory of the "fighters against the regime."
Lyudmila Alekseeva chose a completely different route. The head of the Moscow Helsinki Group said that she didn’t need any foreign grants, and the group would continue its work without foreign assistance. So I want to say: "Lyudmila Mikhailovna, come on ...".
Well, she is a lady with a lot of experience, so her words that someone in the Moscow Helsinki group is going to say no to foreign grants can be considered a good joke. Obviously, Mrs. Alekseeva is going to use, shall we say, special channels of foreign funding to make the MHG case live and flourish. And the heads of Memorial and For Human Rights, after such words, the great-grandmothers of the joint Russian-American democracy decided that they could go along the path that Lyudmila Mikhailovna with her activity in terms of circumventing the new law and dug.
In general, the law on NGOs - foreign agents has been adopted, the law on media - foreign agents have so far been sent for revision. But for the law enforcement system and tax control, Russia will now have to roll up its sleeves and check who else “hasn’t called himself a grudge” there, and is still receiving money from foreign mushroom pickers.
By the way, the law on foreign agents has already led to a series of scandals involving government officials. So, Alexander Bastrykin, who heads the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, can become one of the first victims of the designated person law. The main democrat of modern Russia (yes forgive us Lyudmila Alekseeva) Alexey Navalny recorded him in the “foreign agents”. The oppositionist, referring to the materials published by the deputy Hinstein in 2008-2009, said that Bastrykin has a residence permit in the Czech Republic (a NATO member country), that the head of the RF IC did not pay taxes to the treasury from 50 thousand CZK, and that the official did not declare the acquisition of property abroad. That is why it is time to dismiss Bastrykin from his post. In general, Navalny decided to take revenge on Bastrykin for his words about the need to continue the investigation of the Kirovles case, to which Navalny himself was involved. If this “hairpin” of Navalny is disregarded, then the public may have questions - on what basis did the claims go into the water. If Bastrykin is dismissed from the UK, then it will become a precedent, because far from any of Bastrykin’s officials of this level have “cases” abroad.
The main thing is that our domestic inspectors should not overdo it, otherwise they can put a black list under this shop and the most innocent partnership of dill producers with zucchini ... We have one step from the garden to politics ...
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