Russia and NGOs - January - April 2006

Putin Signs NGO Bill Into Law

Apr. 17: Reuters - Russia NGOs fear trouble as law comes into force

Apr. 03: WSJ - Rights Groups Complain Russia Is Stalling Funds


Mar. 18: NY Times - Russia Closes "Open Russia", Khodorkosky's NGO


Feb. 24: Interfax - Russia's religious groups fear "oppression"

Feb. 22: Kommersant - Russia's religious groups fear "oppression"

Feb. 15: Kommersant - The Council Of Europe Examines The Provisions

Feb. 15: Moscow Times - How Russia's NGO Law Stacks Up

Feb. 08: U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing on democracy in Russia

Feb. 02: U.S. Official Says Law Part Of Antidemocratic Trend


Jan. 19: U.S. State Dept. - Concern About Law's Impact on Civil Society

Jan. 18: Moscow Times - Putin Quietly Signed NGO Bill Last Week

Jan. 18: Reuters - Russia's Lavrov defends controversial NGO law

Jan. 18: WSJ - Russia shuts foreign charity amid tighter NGO scrutiny

Jan. 09: Washington Post - Rodina party's support for NGO bill

read earlier articles

Nov. 29: JTA - Russian bill could harm Jewish organizations

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Interfax - 02.24.2006

UN Rights Commissioner Still Concerned at Russia's New NGO Law

MOSCOW (Interfax) - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said the recently passed Russian bill on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is still a concern.

There are still several areas - NGO registration and their tax accounting - where the law lacks clarity, Arbour said on Friday at a press conference at the Interfax central office.

The question is how the new law will be applied in practice, she said. The law comes into effect in April. The general understanding is that everything will depend on how the law is applied, Arbour said. It will be monitored very carefully both in Russia and abroad, she added.

If the law is applied with certain constraints, it will not seriously hinder the work of the NGOs, she said.

The Russian authorities amended the initial NGO draft bill after consulting with the Council of Europe, Arbour said, noting that these amendments seem to have improved the most problematic points.



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Kommersant - 02.22.2006

Russia's religious groups fear "oppression" under new bills


Proposed amendments to Russia's law on freedom of conscience will enable the authorities to close down religious associations more easily, the Russian newspaper Kommersant has said. The changes allow the Federal Registration Service to carry out inspections on even "a slight suspicion of extremism", and go to court to get associations banned. The paper commented that Russian Orthodox and Protestant communities are unworried by the proposals, whereas Muslim, Jewish and Krishna organizations are concerned the Federal Registration Service could become an instrument for suppressing freedom of belief. The following is text of report "Faiths established. Religious organizations to be tested for extremism" by Pavel Korobov and Yuliya Taratuta, published on 22 February

Kommersant has at its disposal draft amendments to the law "On freedom of conscience and religious association" giving the Federal Registration Service (FRS) the right to carry out religious study checks. According to the results, existing religious associations can be closed down on charges of "conducting an improper trade or propagating extremism". Opponents of the bill fear that the document will become "an instrument of state repression to be used against unwelcome religious organizations".

The draft amendments to the law "On freedom of conscience and religious association" propose substantially broadening the rights of the FRS's expert religious study council, which monitors the activities of religious organizations. Currently FRS checks (they are done by religious study experts) are performed only on religious associations preparing for state registration (under the law, a religious group has to have existed on Russian Federation territory for at least 15 years to obtain the status of a religious organization). The drafters of the amendments are proposing checks on the activities of religious organizations which are already registered as well. If the experts judge that a particular religious organization is involved in "unlawful or extremist" actions, the FRS can apply to the courts to have its activities banned.

The amendments essentially invest the FRS with the powers of a law-enforcement agency. The investigation of extremist activities is currently undertaken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the General Prosecutor's Office under the law "On countering extremist activities" and the article in the criminal code "On inciting national, racial, or religious hostility". "Russia's criminal code fully encompasses the entire range of actions not categorized as lawful activity for religious organizations," Russian Council of Muftis Cochair Nafigulla Ashirov believes. "The amendments duplicate existing Russian legislation and serve only to confuse religious organizations' activities and control over them."

The mufti takes the view, though, that the bill could have another purpose. Bringing criminal proceedings against a religious organization requires serious grounds, whereas an FRS religious study check could be done even on "a slight suspicion of extremism. These amendments could be employed as an additional argument by officials wanting to interfere in a religious organization's activities, but to do so quietly," Mr Ashirov suggested. The mufti has confided to Kommersant on more than one occasion that not only muftiates but also madrasahs (Islamic schools - Kommersant ) have been subjected to unwarranted checks in the course of "the fight against Wahhabism".

Rabbi Zinoviy Kogan, chair of the Congress of Russian Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations, also fears possible oppression by officials. "Only a fool is never afraid, normal people always fear something, and we are no exception," the rabbi confessed. Mr Kogan hopes, however, that "Judaism's four-thousand-year history will stand any test."

The most guarded response to the bill has come from representatives of Moscow Krishna consciousness community, which has repeatedly come under pressure from the authorities (in October last year the Moscow Krishna community was deprived by a ruling by the capital's mayor, Yuriy Luzhkov, of a plot of land that had been allocated for the construction of a temple). "Used in a deliberate fashion, this institution could become an instrument for suppressing freedom of belief," Moscow Krishna community leader Sergey Andreyev stated to Kommersant . "I do not rule out the possibility that the state will take repressive action against religious organizations it does not like in the guise of fighting extremism," Lev Ponomarev, executive director of the "Rights of Man" movement, agrees. "The only beneficiary of this is the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become fused with the state."

Only the Orthodox and the protestants do not share the fears of other religious organizations' representatives. The Moscow patriarchate stated to Kommersant that "we are not inclined to overdramatize the situation." And Sergey Ryakhovskiy, chair of the Russian United Evangelical Christian Union, expressed confidence that Russia's protestants "will not fall into the extremist category".

Meanwhile people at the Russian Federation government commission on religious association issues, which has already recommended the amendments for submission to the State Duma, explained to Kommersant that the broadening of the expert council's powers should not be taken for an attempt to set up a penal agency aimed at religious organizations. "If the state needs to employ the punitive force of the law, the prosecution service exists for that purpose," commission deputy chair Andrey Sebentsov assured us. "The purpose of the amendments is basically to give a state agency the opportunity to seek professional advice in the form of a scientifically substantiated view as to whether a religious organization's activities conform to its charter." In Mr Sebentsov's view, "any supervision or control is to be feared only by religious organizations that have lost their religious content or that allow "improper trade or extremist propaganda" to flourish under the signboard of a religious organization.


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Moscow Times - 02.15.2006

Moscow Times

How Russia's NGO Law Stacks Up

By Nabi Abdullaev 

Despite sizzling criticism from leading human rights groups, the new law on nongovernmental organizations is not as restrictive as similar legislation adopted by France, Finland and other developed democracies.

What makes it potentially dangerous, however, is a lack of clarity over how it will be enforced at a time when the Kremlin is methodically tightening its grip on every area of public life and courts are not generally viewed as independent.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed to laws governing NGOs in France, Finland and Israel when he defended Russia's legislation in an open letter last month. He said worries raised by Russian human rights organizations were "inspired by an incomplete understanding of the situation in the given field of the legislation of leading Western democratic countries."

A review of legislation in France, Israel and Finland shows that they indeed are more restrictive. In France, an NGO must report all donations and bequests and can collect the money only with authorization from the head of the local administration, who first must examine the group's activities. Russian NGOs, in contrast, will have to report only donations from abroad.

President Vladimir Putin quietly signed the NGO law in January, and it will go into effect in April.

Also, a French NGO is required to submit on request its accounting records to both the local administration and the Interior Ministry. In Russia, authorities will be permitted to carry out a financial check on an NGO only once a year.

Russia's law empowers authorities to examine whether an NGO is spending money on its declared program, while the French law only allows authorities to review whether an NGO's economic activities are unfairly competing with the commercial sector.

Israeli authorities do not interfere with how NGOs spend their money -- as long as the groups are not engaged in activities deemed criminal.

"In Israel, an NGO's financial activities should be approved by a convention of its members, and they are not a matter of official concern," said Andrei Kharazov, a spokesman for the Tel Aviv-based Committee in Defense of Democracy and Human Rights.

Russian NGOs have complained that the law uses vague language to describe the reasons a Russian branch of a foreign NGO can be denied registration. The list reads "threats to sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, national unity and originality, cultural heritage and the national interests of the Russian Federation." Most of those terms are left unexplained, opening the door for arbitrary interpretation on the part of bureaucrats.

But the French, Finnish and Israeli laws are nearly identical in their language. In France, an NGO can be denied registration or shut down if it is found to operate "contrary to the law, morals or integrity of the territory or the republic." Finland's law says almost the same thing.

In Israel, an NGO's purpose must not contradict the law, morality or public order. Public associations there are also prohibited from undermining Israeli democracy or serving as a screen for illegal activities.

Kharazov said that many NGOs in Israel were "quite extremist" in their rhetoric and were not afraid to insult officials and the government. "No one tries to shut them down," he said.

Russian NGOs believe the new law is aimed, in part, at shutting down those critical of Putin, the government and the military.

Lavrov acknowledged in the open letter that parts of the law were open to interpretation by bureaucrats and courts. "But this does not cause any special problems for anyone," he wrote.

"Of course," he added, "a lot depends on the enforcement of the law."

One way to measure how well NGO laws are enforced in the European countries is to count how many times NGOs have complained of arbitrary behavior by the authorities.

Gunter Schirmer, the secretary of the committee on legal affairs and human rights in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said no Finnish NGO had ever filed a complaint to his committee. The Council of Europe is the continent's leading human rights watchdog.

"Finland has a strict NGO law, but it is not applied for repressions, and we never receive complaints from there," Schirmer said by telephone from Strasbourg, France.

Several small religious groups in France have complained, Schirmer said, adding that his committee investigated the complaints to see whether they were justified. He said no prominent French NGOs had complained.

Council of Europe experts are now scrutinizing the Russian law, and they have already found it to be much less restrictive than the initial version approved by the State Duma in November, Schirmer said. "Still, very much depends not on the wording but on how the law is applied," he said.

The Kremlin has cast a concerned eye on NGOs after peaceful uprisings overthrew entrenched governments in Ukraine in 2004 and Georgia in 2003. NGOs played a key role in the protests. Russia has parliamentary elections in 2007 and a presidential vote in 2008.

Some NGOs said they had every reason to believe that the NGO law would be used to repress them.

"The state has used other laws to intimidate the NGO community, and it just got another big truncheon with the adoption of the NGO law," said Tatyana Lokshina, head of the Moscow-based Demos rights group.

She cited as an example the recent conviction of Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, the head of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a Nizhny Novgorod-based NGO. Dmitriyevsky was handed a two-year suspended sentence this month for publishing statements from Chechen separatist leaders in the NGO's newspaper. The charges, of inciting ethnic hatred, were based on the law on countering extremism, which was fiercely debated before being adopted in July 2002.

Although free, Dmitriyevsky will be unable to keep his post as the organization's leader under the NGO law, which bars anyone convicted of a crime from founding or heading an NGO.

"The government is cultivating a presumption of guilt for the NGOs, especially those that are engaged in human rights, and they have to prove their own innocence in court instead of the state proving their guilt," Lokshina said.

Since Putin's ascension to power in 2000, the Kremlin has effectively taken control over alternative centers of political influence in the country. The authorities have accused several NGOs of having ties to foreign intelligence. The NGOs deny the claim.



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Kommersant - 02.15.2006

Russia shuts foreign charity amid tighter NGO scrutiny

Strasbourg assesses Russia's new NGO legislation 

By Sergei Strokan 

[The Council of Europe considers that Russia's new legislation on non-governmental and non-profit organizations contravenes a number of provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights. Amendments made to the initial draft of the bill were not enough to make it meet Council of Europe standards.]

We have obtained a copy of the Council of Europe's conclusions regarding whether Russia's new legislation on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) corresponds to international democratic standards. The conclusions will be released officially this Friday. Strasbourg considers that Russia's law contravenes a number of provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights, although the legislation was improved somewhat after some of the Council of Europe's recommendations were taken into account when it was corrected. 

The Council of Europe (CE) first took an interest in Russia's much-discussed NGO legislation in early December, at Moscow's suggestion. Justice Minister Yuri Chaika made an urgent trip to Strasbourg to get the bill assessed by CE experts. The idea of doing this came from President Vladimir Putin himself; by then, the bill had already generated a powerful wave of criticism in the West, which the Kremlin could no longer ignore. CE Secretary General Terry Davis told us that he learned of Chaika's unscheduled visit to Strasbourg from Alexander Orlov, Russia's envoy to the CE. Orlov requested Davis to provide an expert assessment of the Russian legislation urgently, within the few remaining days before Chaika's arrival. 

According to Davis, he immediately contacted a prominent European legal specialist, Professor van der Ploeg from Amsterdam, who worked with the CE's leading experts to prepare a conclusion, as quickly as possible, on whether the Russian NGO bill met CE standards. Van der Ploeg's group prepared its conclusion within two days, and Chaika took this back to Moscow. There he made a reassuring statement to the effect that CE experts had found the bill to be in overall compliance with international standards, although they questioned some of its provisions. According to our Strasbourg sources, however, there were quite a few of those questions and objections. 

For example, one of the fundamental points challenged by the CE group of experts was the inclusion of a mandatory re-registration requirement for all non-profit organizations operating in Russia. The Strasbourg experts argued that such a "sweeping inventory" would open up a lot of scope for bureaucratic abuses, with the right to re-registration depending on any particular NGO's relations with the authorities and how loyal it is to them. 

The experts pointed out that the bill's proposed requirements for foreign NGOs were far tougher than for Russian NGOs. For example, the first draft stated that foreigners could not be employed by such organizations unless they had permanent residency status in Russia. In practice, this could mean that "temporary residents" - that is, people who had come to Russia for the purpose of working with NGOs - might have to leave the country immediately as soon as the law was passed. 

The CE experts also questioned the requirement for foreign organizations to re-register as Russian organizations. They noted that the requirement to become "Russian organizations" could prove an insurmountable barrier for the operations of a number of organizations. 

After Chaika reported to Putin on the results of his trip to Strasbourg and the van der Ploeg group's conclusions, Russian officials started editing the NGO bill. After a number of changes and corrections had been made, the bill was passed by parliament in the second and third readings by the end of last year, and signed into law by President Putin on January 10. In assessing the final version of the law, federal officials, Duma members, and analysts said that Moscow had taken the CE's wishes into account to the maximal extent. 

But emotions at the CE didn't die down. Strasbourg didn't share Russia's optimism, as evidenced by the latest Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) session in late January: much to the Russian delegation's surprise, the PACE voted in favor of an amendment stating that despite all the changes made to it, Russia's NGO legislation still doesn't meet CE criteria. 

During discussion of German socialist Rudolf Bindig's report on Chechnya, Cristos Purguridis (Cyprus) pointed out that most of the information about widespread disappearances and murders in Chechnya had been provided to Strasbourg by NGOs, and proposed including the following statement in the resolution: "The PACE is concerned by the fact that the Russian Federation's recently-passed law on the legal status of NGOs does not meet CE criteria. The PACE expresses concern about reports of NGOs being harassed by administrative and law enforcement bodies in the Russian Federation." Seventy PACE members voted in favor of this amendment, with 59 voting against. 

In response to the latest evaluation of Russia's NGO legislation, made during the January PACE session in Strasbourg, Russian legislators and diplomats were aggrieved, saying that the CE hadn't even bothered to read the new legislation properly, preferring blanket criticism with no substance behind it. According to this version of events, the NGO resolution at the PACE session was initiated by a small group of members who were hostile to Russia, and was not backed by any substantial expert assessments. So in order to clarify matters, CE Secretary General Terry Davis instructed CE lawyers to evaluat the Russian NGO law again - the final version, this time. As we have learned, their conclusion, due to be released this Friday, contains the reassuring statement that overall, the latest version of the Russian law is somewhat better - although still not perfect. Among the positive aspects noted by the CE is that the re- registration requirement for NGOs, present in the initial draft, has now been dropped. 

However, CE experts maintain that several fundamentally important CE recommendations were not included in the final version of the NGO law. In particular, Moscow ignored the proposal to relax state supervision for NGOs. As we have learned, the CE experts concluded that the new version of the law give state agencies unjustifiably broad powers to demand any and all kinds of "administrative documents" from NGOs and inspect NGOs regularly, sending state representatives onto their premises. 

The CE's strongest objections still concern the law's requirements for foreign NGOs operating in Russia. In the latest version of the law, these requirements are still far more stringent than the rules for Russian NGOs. For example, the Russian authorities have the right to ban any project proposed by a foreign NGO if it is considered as "threatening Russia's territorial integrity, sovereignty, or national identity." Foreign NGOs can be denied registration on the same grounds. The Strasbourg experts note that these provisions contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. 

There are already some signs that the adoption of this law could have some very serious consequences for NGOs. For example, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) is currently completing its inspection of financial reports submitted by political parties for the last quarter of 2005. As CEC Deputy Chairman Oleg Velyashev has acknowledged, the inspection is particularly stringent for parties that receive funding from NGOs which are "non-transparent and hard to check," in Velyashev's opinion. CEC Chairman Alexander Veshnyakov has already hinted that parties failing to meet requirements will face penalties, up to and including suspension of their operations, or even deregistration. 

Accepting that Russia's NGO law has already been passed and cannot be changed, the CE has decided against making a fuss after the event. It is simply warning Russia that it needs to be very cautious in enforcing this new legislation. A number of its provisions contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, which makes appeals to the European Court from Russian NGOs an entirely realistic prospect. 

Translated by Denis Shcherbakov

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Wall Street Journal - 01.18.2006

Russia shuts foreign charity amid tighter NGO scrutiny

By Guy Chazan

MOSCOW -- Russian prosecutors said they closed down a foreign charity in the country's troubled Caucasus region just as a much-criticized law tightening state control over nongovernmental organizations entered Russia's statute books.

The Center for Peacemaking and Community Development, or CPCD, a Russian-British humanitarian group, confirmed that a local court had shut down its operations in Ingushetia, a small province in the North Caucasus that borders Chechnya. While the closure wasn't linked to the new law, the ban typifies the increasingly chilly climate for international humanitarian groups in Russia.

Russian prosecutors said the court also was considering their request to ban another charity, the U.S.-based International Medical Corps. A statement issued by the Prosecutor General's Office said neither CPCD nor IMC had permission to operate in Ingushetia. But IMC's Russia director said the organization's current license is valid until 2008. CPCD, which ran a conflict-resolution program and women's center, said it plans to reregister as a Russian entity so it can continue to work in Ingushetia.

The court action came as a controversial bill increasing state supervision of nongovernmental organizations officially became law with its publication yesterday in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Seen as an attack on Russia's embryonic civil society, the law was condemned in Western capitals. U.S. President George W. Bush raised the issue in a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in November, and the U.S. Congress passed resolutions demanding the law be withdrawn or modified. Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, also discussed it in her first meeting with President Putin in the Kremlin Monday.

Russian authorities say the law is targeted at terrorist and extremist groups that receive financing from abroad. Mr. Putin said after his meeting with Ms. Merkel that the law was aimed at "improving the transparency of financing domestic political activity."

But the law also reflects a fear among Russia's ruling elite that foreign advocacy groups are seeking to subvert the country's political system -- a fear that has intensified after popular revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, which many in Moscow claim were fomented by Western organizations.

The original draft of the law raised an outcry by requiring all foreign nongovernmental organizations and foundations to reregister as Russian legal entities -- a demand that goes against the rules of many Western outfits and would have forced high-profile groups such as Human Rights Watch to shut down in Russia. That provision was later dropped.

But the final version still gives broad, discretionary powers to the state body that will register and oversee all grass-roots groups. It can, for example, deny registration to any foreign group that threatens Russia's "sovereignty," "cultural heritage" and "national interests," grounds critics say are too vague.

The measure also forces grass-roots organizations to report all the foreign grants they receive and how they spend them, and it allows authorities to require foreign grant-givers to cease funding specific Russian groups.

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Reuters - 01.18.2006

Russia's Lavrov defends controversial NGO law

By Oliver Bullough

MOSCOW (Reuters) Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday defended a new law that introduces tight controls on non-governmental organizations, which activists have called an assault on their work.

In an open letter published in the Noviye Izvestia daily, Sergei Lavrov said the law was fully in line with Western practice, and that much of rights groups' criticism was irrelevant.

He was addressing specific criticism leveled by top Russian human rights groups and sent to him in December, before President Vladimir Putin approved the bill to bring it into law.

Global rights groups and many Western nations raised concerns over the bill, and the news that Putin had signed the bill into law a week ago filtered out only on Tuesday.

"The reality is that with the adoption of the new Russian law there will be no dramatic changes in the activities of NGOs," said Lavrov in his letter.

"In the law adopted by the Federal Assembly, no limits on people's freedom and no bans on NGOs' activities are to be introduced or could be introduced because that would contradict the Russian constitution."

Activists say the law's limits on foreign funding for NGOs, a ban on them being involved in "political activities" and an obligation for them to re-register are unfair curbs.

Many activists say it is an attempt to bring NGOs under the control of the Kremlin -- which has already cracked down on the media, businessmen and other rival power bases -- before elections in 2007-8.

The Kremlin says the law is necessary to stop criminals and terrorists hiding under the cover of NGOs. But rights groups have said it hands easy weapons to bureaucrats to shut down any NGOs that the government disagrees with.

Lavrov admitted a lot would come down to the quality of law enforcement. But he said: "This will not cause anyone any particular problems."

The Kremlin was clearly embarrassed by the storm of Western criticism that greeted the law. Putin ordered it to be watered down, and his unpublicized signing of the bill was widely seen as a bid to prevent German Chancellor Angela Merkel bringing it up at a meeting between the two on Monday.

"In the best of Soviet traditions, the law was published at the very moment when the head of the German government had left Moscow," said Lev Ponomarev, head of the "For Human Rights" NGO.


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Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 11.29.2005

Russian bill on nonprofit groups could harm Jewish organizations

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW (JTA) -- Some Russian Jewish activists are concerned that a new bill on nonprofit organizations may harm their operations. 

But larger Jewish nonprofits working in Russia remain calm about the legislation, which could limit the ability of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, to accept foreign funds. 

The bill received preliminary approval in State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, last week. 

Much of the criticism comes from the human rights community, which blames the Kremlin for pushing amendments to the bill through the State Duma. The amendments are widely seen as targeting human rights organizations that often criticize federal and local authorities. 

"The authorities are often irritated by the criticism that is coming from NGOs," said Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau on Human Rights, a group that monitors anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Russia. "The new law will help the authorities to use registering organs when they want to shut down the activities of the NGOs that criticize the authorities." 

The bill would place nonprofits under stricter state control and could shut foreign nonprofits currently operating in Russia or indigenous nonprofits that use foreign funds. The State Duma, Russia's lower house of Parliament, approved it by a 370-18 vote Nov. 23. 

In its current version, the bill requires nonprofits to re-register with the Justice Ministry and empowers authorities to check that nonprofits do not use foreign grants to finance political activities. 

Some foreign nonprofits -- especially those that promote a civil society in Russia -- have warned that the bill would shut them down. 

The bill must pass two more readings in the State Duma -- expected by the end of the year -- before going to the upper house of Parliament, a body controlled by supporters of President Vladimir Putin. After that step, the bill would go to Putin to be signed into law. Some have speculated that Putin could veto the legislation to raise his standing in the eyes of the international community. 

On Nov. 24, Putin responded to worries of a looming crackdown on nonprofits by saying that foreign funding of any political activity in Russia must come under state control. But he stressed that the legislation must not damage civil society. 

Backers of the bill say it's aimed at fighting extremism and money-laundering by nonprofits, and deny that it seeks to clamp down on the groups. 

But critics insist that the bill was proposed by a Putin administration seeking to minimize ways for foreign money to finance political activities in Russia, a sensitive issue for the Kremlin after three former Soviet republics -- Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- changed their leadership as a result of mass public protests using pro-democracy slogans. 

Brod said he wasn't ruling out the possibility that officials may create an unofficial blacklist of nonprofits -- especially from the human rights sector -- and deny them re-registration. His own group may be at risk, he said, since it receives most of its funding from foreign sources, particularly the European Commission. 

"They may reject the financial paperwork we provide during re-registration on some formal grounds and eventually close us down, along with dozens of other groups," he said. 

Most Russian nonprofits that provide services to the Jewish community are not involved in direct political or human rights activism. But the lion's share of current funding for Jewish causes in Russia comes from overseas charities. 

Does the proposed legislation endanger these groups? For two of the major Jewish organizations operating in Russia, the tentative answer would appear to be no. 

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, whose American fund-raising branch recently made it onto a list of the 400 largest philanthropies in the United States, operates in Russia as an indigenous nonprofit organization. 

For its part, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee uses different statuses for its work in Russia, including as a representative office of the American JDC. Still, its financial activities in Russia usually are managed by another Russian nonprofit that uses the JDC's name but is formally unrelated to its overseas parent group. 

None of the major Jewish groups that work with foreign donations -- including the local branches of the JDC and the Jewish Agency for Israel -- agreed to comment publicly on the new law. 

JAFI has long operated in Russia as a local nonprofit called the Jewish Agency in Russia, which at least on paper is not linked to the Israeli-based organization. 

Officials at some smaller Jewish nonprofits say they're worried about the bill. 

"Our organization was founded by foreign founders. How should we operate now?" asked Svetlana Muterperel, general manager of an independent, Moscow-based charity that spends much of its funds on Jewish causes. 

"I'm sure the law will multiply the difficulties of the NGOs here," said Muterperel, who asked that her group's name not be used. "The Russian legislation provides no financial incentives for charity giving. If this law is enacted, many of us will find it even more difficult to operate."


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