SALON

Friday, Jul 6, 2012 8:45 AM UTC

Russian lawmakers to vote on bill targeting NGOs

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Russian lawmakers to vote on bill targeting NGOsLyudmila Alexeyeva, human rights activist and Moscow Helsinki Group head speaks at a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, July 5, 2012. Cracking down on NGO activity has been a key political goal of Vladimir Putin, who assumed his third term as President this May. Parliament on Friday will give initial approval to the bill, which would impose harsh accountability regulations on all foreign-funded non-governmental organizations that are involved in political activity. Alexeyeva has already declared that the Moscow Helsinki Group will refuse to have itself registered as a "foreign agent", if the State Duma finally adopts the law.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)(Credit: AP)

A Kremlin-backed law being considered would impose harsh regulations on all of Russia’s foreign-funded non-governmental organizations involved in political activity.

The bill is expected to win preliminary approval Friday in the Russian parliament. It’s all part of a broad crackdown on civil liberties and dissent that has accompanied Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in May.

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy director of Golos, a group that compiled evidence of thousands of electoral violations in Russia’s recent elections, says authorities would now have “a hundred different ways to render us ineffective.”

The pro-democracy group depends on grants from European nations and the United States.

More Laura Mills.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations