Russian green group labelled 'foreign agent' in crackdown on NGOs
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Version 0 of 1. An ecological centre in Russia’s far east has become the latest environmental group to be declared a “foreign agent” amid a wider crackdown on NGOs. The justice ministry ruled that Dauria, which has led environmental campaigns in Chita and the surrounding Zabaikalsky region for nearly two decades, was a foreign agent under a law that prohibits NGOs that allegedly engage in political activities from receiving grants from abroad. The label, which has all the connotations of the word “spy” in Russian, requires groups to undergo audits and declare this status on all their materials or face large fines. The accusations stemmed from a joint programme between Dauria, Russian mining giant Polyus Gold and the UK-based Charities Aid Foundation. Dauria was in charge of selecting students for educational activities, while funding for the programme came from abroad. Dauria head Natalya Kovalyonok, who is also a public chamber member, told local publication Zabaikalsky Rabochy that a hotline she ran for voters to report violations during elections had been deemed to be political activity, even though it did not agitate for any specific candidate. “Obviously it was unbecoming for the region not to have its own foreign agent, and they really had to find one,” Kovalyonok said. “Dauria is a conscientious organisation working to protect the earth, and declaring it a foreign agent is a result of … individual groups in the government trying to strengthen their position by cracking down on made-up threats,” Igor Shkradyuk of the Biodiversity Conservation Centre, who has frequently worked in the Zabaikalsky region, told the Guardian. A growing number of environmental and human rights groups have been declared foreign agents in what Mikhail Fedotov, head of the presidential human rights council, has called a “witch hunt”. Nearly 100 organisations have been added to the foreign agent list, forcing many to cease activities, and the number of NGOs in Russia has reportedly decreased by a third since the law came into effect in 2012. Last year, president Vladimir Putin signed a law banning “undesirable” foreign organisations that allegedly threaten national security. Most recently, the Nizhny Novgorod-based Dront Ecological Centre was declared a foreign agent and fined 300,000 roubles (£2,700). Prior to that, the well-respected Sakhalin Environmental Watch was forced to return $159,000 (£110,000) it had received from Leonardo DiCaprio’s foundation after it was declared a foreign agent in September. In recent weeks, the group has been fighting to contain an oil leak from a tanker that ran aground on a shoal off of Sakhalin island. The environmental groups Bellona Murmansk, Ecodefense, and Planet of Hopes have also been added to the foreign agent list. |