I. Summary

The Russian government’s deliberate weakening of key institutions of a pluralistic democratic society, which marked the presidency of Vladimir Putin, has largely continued under President Dmitry Medvedev.  A key aspect of this process has been increasing excessive government scrutiny and control of nongovernmental organizations, mainly through the 2006 law regulating NGOs. The government also uses a variety of other measures such as arbitrary tax, labor, and fire inspections, and anti-extremism legislation to harass civil society organizations. The groups targeted are usually those that work on controversial issues, may be capable of galvanizing public dissent, or receive funding from abroad. This report, which updates our February 2008 publication “Choking on Bureaucracy”[1] and is based on research in 10 of Russia’s regions, documents the continuing corrosive impact the 2006 NGO law and other government measures are having on civil society and independent activism in Russia.

The election of President Medvedev, reputed to be a cautious reformer, occasioned some optimism for reform. Those hopes have yet to be realised. In April 2009 Medvedev called for reform of the NGO law, and later convened a working group to draft amendments to the 2006 law. Much needs to be done to ensure that the effort will result in meaningful change. Medvedev’s May 2008 decree mandating the transfer of NGO registration and oversight authority to the Ministry of Justice has resulted in little, if any, change in the level of unwarranted intervention in the work of NGOs. Meanwhile, restrictions on freedom of expression continue, as do hostile rhetoric toward independent civil society. During Medvedev’s first year in office, violence swelled against activists and other public personalities.

Changes in the tax regime have adversely affected NGO funding—foreign financial grants to Russian NGOs now incur substantial tax liabilities since rules were changed in June 2008. This was unsurprising, after the Kremlin made clear that the restrictions introduced in the 2006 NGO law were aimed at controlling and monitoring foreign funding of NGOs. In combination, these recently enacted laws and policies have created financial hardships for many organizations.

Meanwhile, through the NGO law state officials exercise excessive authority to interfere in the founding and operation of NGOs. For example, in some cases the Ministry of Justice rejects registration applications or notifications of organizational and operational changes on minor technical, non-substantive grounds, such as typos or errors in document formatting. The NGO law and Ministry of Justice regulations impose onerous reporting requirements on NGOs, especially relating to any foreign sources of funding. They give the Ministry of Justice unlimited discretion to request documents for inspection and to interpret them, including for compliance with the constitution, laws, and “interests” of Russia in the broadest terms. In one notable case in October 2008, however, such a demand was restricted by a court in St. Petersburg.

Ministry of Justice officials can conduct intrusive inspections of NGOs every three years, and can also conduct “unplanned” inspections at any time, and on such grounds as an unsubstantiated complaint by a citizen. Reports indicate that the Ministry of Justice sometimes demands to review all aspects of an NGO’s work during an inspection, including areas that are beyond Ministry of Justice jurisdiction.

In three cases documented in this report, in 2007 and 2008 the Ministry of Justice successfully sought dissolution of groups in Vladimir, Tyumen, and Ulan-Ude on minor, alleged administrative violations. Its efforts to dissolve another Vladimir group, and groups in Samara and Chita, were stopped by the courts.

It is important that courts are holding the line and provide an avenue of redress to NGOs. But court proceedings are time-consuming and challenging, and not all groups have the financial and human resources that allow them to endure lengthy court proceedings. While in some cases the courts may find in favor of an NGO in an appeal against arbitrary or groundlessly punitive actions taken by the Ministry of Justice, it should not fall to the courts to be the sole authority to correct such arbitrariness. Neither should arbitrariness be so highly prevalent.

In some cases the Ministry of Justice appears quick to resort to negative, punitive measures against NGOs—be this by rejecting registration documents, issuing warnings, or seeking dissolution. Indeed, the law provides for little response from the Ministry of Justice other than punitive measures. Rather than punishing NGOs, the Ministry of Justice should seek to support NGOs in understanding and complying with their legal obligations and assist them in preventing and correcting any administrative violations.

The 2006 NGO Law and its accompanying regulations are inconsistent with the Council of Europe standards on the creation, management, and operation of NGOs. When evaluating the conformity of Russia’s laws regulating NGO registration with Council of Europe standards and European practice, the Council of Europe’s Expert Council on NGO Law criticized various aspects of Russia’s NGO regulatory regime, concluding that it “needs to be seriously simplified and built on straightforward bases.” Previous Council of Europe analyses have concluded that the NGO law provides “excessive powers of supervision.”

The NGO law is only one among many tools employed by the Kremlin that create a worsening climate for NGO work and effectively paralyze the work of some organizations. Harassing tax inspections, inspections for building code or labor code compliance, inspections for pirated software, and police raids, have targeted organizations that are working on particularly controversial topics or that receive foreign funding. NGOs are vulnerable, too, to being targeted under the Law on Countering Extremist Activity (the anti-extremism law) and associated anti-extremism criminal statutes. This report documents how the broad and vague provisions of the legislation enable the arbitrary targeting of groups that work on human rights, or that express or mobilize dissent. It also demonstrates how article 282 of the related criminal statutes forbids incitement of hatred against “social groups,” a nebulous term which has been construed in a way to silence criticism of the authorities.

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In April 2009 President Medevedev signaled that it was time to reverse the hostile rhetoric, to relax restrictions on civil society instituted during Putin’s presidency, and to amend laws regulating NGOs. During a meeting with members of the presidential Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, Medvedev acknowledged unwarranted restrictions on nongovernmental organizations, and pledged his willingness to review the law. In an interview on the same day with Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper, Medvedev articulated a commitment to democracy and political rights and freedoms, stating that they cannot be traded for prosperity.

His positive statements were followed in May 2009 by the creation of a working group that was tasked with reforming the regulation of noncommercial organizations (NCOs), a term that in Russia encompasses part of the NGO sector. Even so, President Medvedev’s statements to date have fallen short of committing to specific reforms. Moreover, any resultant reform would, if adopted, affect only one-third of NGOs (the other two-thirds would be unaffected because they are registered under different legal forms). But despite these shortcomings, Medvedev’s overtures are symbolically significant and provide an important window of opportunity for change.

Human Rights Watch calls on the Russian government to end and desist from further arbitrary limitations on the work of independent civil society groups, and instead empower NGOs to restore and enhance the prominent role they have played in Russian public life. The Russian authorities should simplify the registration procedure and severely pare back the grounds on which NGOs can be denied registration. They should also ensure that penalties handed down are proportionate to any administrative violation, and that dissolution of an NGO is sought based only on the principles laid out in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Russian government should also publicly and consistently condemn attacks on civil society activists.

Russia’s international partners should welcome President Medvedev’s acknowledgment of the challenges faced by NGOs, including the negative attitude of government officials, and strongly encourage the Russian authorities to make full use of this critical opportunity to push forward real changes to the operating environment for NGOs. Foreign governments and international institutions should express to Russian interlocutors that several of the existing law’s provisions and their implementation clearly violate international human rights standards, as they appear intended to prevent the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights such as freedom of expression and association. Partner governments and multilateral organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe should urge the Russian government to commit to a transparent process for considering changes to the law, ensuring adequate opportunities for input by civil society groups. The European Union should make it clear that reform of NGO regulations is a priority issue for the European Union and that it will monitor closely the actions taken in this regard.

Methodology

This report is a follow-up to Human Rights Watch’s February 2008 report “Choking on Bureaucracy,” in which we documented the effects of Russia’s 2006 NGO law on civil society organizations. Cases documented in this report reflect events that took place largely after the publication of that report, although several cases in the present report reflect events that predate “Choking on Bureaucracy” but continued beyond its publication. Three cases included here are wholly from the time period covered by “Choking on Bureaucracy” but came to light in the course of researching this present report in regions not covered by its predecessor, and are illustrative of ongoing phenomena.

This report is based on in-depth interviews conducted in nine Russian cities—Cheboksary, Chita, Kazan, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Samara, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, and Vladimir—between May and October 2008. From the civil society sector, interviews were conducted with those with responsibility for responding to accusations of noncompliance with the NGO law, such as NGO directors and managers, activists, and lawyers. Interviewees were identified through referral from local groups that monitor the implementation of the NGO law, and through the media. The cities where we conducted interviews were selected for their geographic diversity and the presence of a critical mass of active civil society organizations. Interviews with representatives of several Moscow-based organizations were also conducted in Moscow. Some additional interviews were conducted over the telephone when travel was not possible. Follow-up interviews were conducted by phone and by email.

Our findings and recommendations in “Choking on Bureaucracy” did not elicit any formal response from the Russian Ministry of Justice. We put to the ministry by letter in May 2009 a series of questions relating to the findings in this present report, and have not received a response at this writing. Attempts to call the ministry to request a meeting and discuss our questions were unsuccessful; in several cases, phone calls to published phone numbers for the Ministry of Justice’s the NGO Department were picked up but went unanswered. Numerous calls made over a two-week period to the reception of the director of the NGO Department also went unanswered. In the regions, we sought contact with two branch offices of the Ministry of Justice that local NGO interlocutors identified to us as models of good practice in supporting NGOs. Two officials from the branch office for the Chuvash Republic accepted to be interviewed by Human Rights Watch, but our requests to meet with the branch office for Khabarovsk territory were declined, and a written reply to questions we submitted in writing was nonresponsive to the substantive issues we raised.

All interviews were done by a Human Rights Watch researcher who is fluent in Russian; interviews in Kazan and Samara were also conducted in conjunction with a Human Rights Watch researcher who is a native speaker of Russian.

Human Rights Watch also examined official documents from the Ministry of Justice, court rulings, Russian officials’ public statements, analytical reports published by Russian groups, and media accounts.

In Russia most NGOs are registered as noncommercial organizations (NCOs) or public associations, and are regulated by the Law on Noncommercial Organizations or the Law on Public Associations, respectively. Because the rules and procedures for both types of organizations are largely the same, this report refers to them collectively as NGOs, except when discussing differences in the organizational forms or when otherwise necessary.