Moscow Times - 06.04.2004

The Moscow Times

NGOs Go Soft on Putin's Address

By Francesca Mereu, Staff Writer

A week after President Vladimir Putin accused nongovernmental organizations of serving "dubious groups and commercial interests," some of the country's most prominent human rights groups gave their first public reaction -- and it was decidedly low-key.

At a joint news conference Thursday, billed as "Pressure on Russian Human Rights Organizations Is Continuing," officials from the Moscow Helsinki Group and Public Verdict agreed that NGOs are facing increasing pressure from the authorities, but were reluctant to criticize Putin's comments, made during his state of the nation address.

"The president was speaking about some organizations that are working under Western influence," said Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group. "Maybe he knows such organizations; I don't know any. I don't know whom he was talking about. Our organization has nothing to do to with what [Putin said]."

Public Verdict, which is supported by Mikhail Khodorkovsky-funded Open Russia, also refrained from commenting on Putin's speech. Putin had appeared to take a clear swipe at NGOs like Open Russia, saying, "They cannot bite the hand that feeds them."

The muted criticisms contrasted with those from NGOs working in Chechnya, which have repeatedly complained of threats and harassment from the authorities.

The head of an NGO dealing with human rights issues in Chechnya, who asked not to be named, said Thursday that threats to the organization were common.

"We had threatening phone calls, and a colleague of ours has received a friendly warning from an FSB officer he knows. He was told that NGOs would not be touched until after the [national] presidential election," she said.

After Putin's speech last week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters that NGOs in Chechnya were not pursuing their declared humanitarian mission, but offering succor to rebels.

"Many NGOs operating in Chechnya are predominantly engaged in collecting information, not in providing real humanitarian aid," he said.

The day before the Moscow Helsinki Group and Public Verdict gave their reactions to Putin's speech, another group of 15 human rights activists spoke out Wednesday.

The activists, including Lev Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement, and Yelena Bonner, widow of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov, said in a statement that they disputed the idea that NGOs serve commercial interests and ignore the country's problems.

"The accusation that human rights organizations supported by Western funds are passive is mere demagogy," the statement said.

But on Thursday, Alekseyeva said she did not know anything about the activists' statement, and would not say whether her organization had been asked to sign it.

Earlier in the week, Moscow Helsinki Group executive director Tatyana Lokshina had said the organization was working to draft a joint statement with other NGOs, which was supposed to be issued by the end of the week.

Ella Panfilova, the Kremlin's human rights commissioner, said Putin had not intended to criticize NGOs' work.

"I don't know what he meant in his speech, but I can say that I know his position on the issue. He thinks that it is impossible to fight against bureaucracy and corruption in the country without the help of civic control," Panfilova said.

Panfilova said that Putin cared especially about NGOs working in Chechnya. "I spoke with him about it in March, and he said how important for him it was that civic control did not stop in Chechnya," she said.

Exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky, who has supported a range of media outlets and NGOs critical of the Kremlin, said on Monday he would step up his funding of civil society projects in Russia through his New York-based Foundation for Civil Liberties. About 100 groups would receive extra grants over the next year, he said.

"Human rights groups are society's last line of resistance to the authoritarian state, after political opposition, free media and independent business have been crushed," Berezovsky said.

Many of the country's NGOs have reported harassment from the authorities for years, including tax raids involving the confiscation of documents and computers, unwarranted fire inspections, and bureaucratic hurdles to getting registered.

In 2003, Russia ended a decade-long mission by the Peace Corps and a seven-year project by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor human rights in Chechnya.

Also last year, American labor activist Irene Stevenson was denied a visa. Stevenson had headed a U.S-funded program to advise workers and trade unions on their rights for 11 years.

Human rights groups have criticized moves by the Kremlin under Putin to close critical television stations, and accused him of manipulating elections in an attempt to restrict democracy.

See related articles:
Kremlin Seeks Loyal NGOs
FM Lavrov Talks With NGOs