Russia: Russian Civil society organizations contest an highly repressive new government law

Interest of the Russian people in participating in non-commercial projects seems to be rising constantly in the latest years. According to the survey of Yuriy Levada?s Analytical Centre, 10-12 million people are activists of NGOs.
Taking into consideration the fact that the over-15year-old population of Russia is 121 million, it means that every one out of ten Russians takes part in NGO activities. Meanwhile, it is hardly possible to estimate the exact number of NGOs in Russia. In the 2007 On the state of the Civil Society in the Russian Federation in the year 2006 report, the Public Chamber of Russian Federation (a consultative body under the President of Russia, whose members are representatives of public associations and people who contributed to the merit for the state and society) presented the data on the quantity of the NGOs; by October 1st, 2006 there had been registered 359 020 non-commercial organizations.
In accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, this number includes public associations, religious organizations, funds, institutions, consumers? co-operatives, and also autonomous non-commercial organizations, non-commercial partnerships, units of apartment?s owners and others. However, a new head of the Registration Office of Russia informed about 182 000 NGOs.

Saint-Petersburg is one of the leading regions in terms of development of non-commercial sector in Russia. In 2001-2006 the number of NGOs in Saint-Petersburg has increased to 40%; this exceeds the country average rate of 34%. But the rise of total quantity is due, mainly, to Units of Apartment Owners, their establishment is supported by the Government, so these ciphers do not correspond directly to the rise of registered public initiatives.

Answering the question of the number of NGOs in Saint-Petersburg, a representative of Saint-Petersburg Centre of NGO Development (this public association is a source centre for NGOs; it monitors the situation with NGOs, consults and educates members of organizations) Marina Dmitrieva told that, unfortunately, it is difficult to estimate it. It may be said about approximately 22 000 NGOs.

Concerning latest protests in Saint-Petersburg and in Moscow and their possible influence on NGO activities Ms Dmitrieva suggested that these events may be used as a reason against amending the Law on NGO, as the Russian authorities and certain mass-media consider Marches of Non-agreeing to be financed from abroad.

M. Dmitrieva means the Law on NGO which was passed at the beginning of 2006. It made control over NGO activities tougher and complicated their registration procedure and functioning: before this law it had been enough for an NGO just to inform the Registration Office of Russia of its working, and now every NGO should present detailed information on its activities and expenses. The president Putin explained hardening of the control as a need ?to prevent financing political activities from abroad.? But as no definition of ?political activism? is given, serious concerns raise that the term could be interpreted too broadly by government officials, allowing them to close any NGO.
The law had been criticized by Human Right Watch even before it was signed by the president. Holly Cartner, executive director of HRW?s Europe and Central Asia division claimed that «this unprecedented assault on the work of human rights groups will invariably undermine the rights of all Russians?. Russian Human Right activists, including the ombudsman of Russia V. Lukin, also criticized this law.

During 2006 researches were carried out, which demonstrated the need to mitigate NGO registration procedure and to refuse this new excessive annual reporting. For example, in the report Economical Consequences of a New Law on NGO which was prepared at the instance of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Counsel under the President of the Russian Federation, it was written that all Russian NGOs had spent on preparing their annual reports up to 7.3 billion rubles (about 232 million euro). Also the Public Chamber in its report, mentioned above, drew attention to importance of continuation of discussion on necessity of this law and need of its amending.

Sources: Non-governmental non-commercial organizations in St. Petersburg. Informational-analytic reports. 2005, 2006 of Centre of NGO Development.
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