Russia Says Nonprofits Violate ‘Foreign Agent’ Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/europe/russia-says-nonprofits-violate-foreign-agent-law.html

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MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors said Tuesday that 215 nongovernmental organizations had violated a contentious new Russian law that requires them to register as “foreign agents,” potentially setting the stage for a new wave of legal confrontations.

Russia’s general prosecutor, Yuri Y. Chaika, reported on the results of a law passed last November, which requires nonprofit groups to label themselves foreign agents if they receive financing from overseas and are deemed to engage in political activities. Most nonprofits here resolved to defy the new law, saying the term foreign agent is redolent of cold war espionage and would discredit their work in the eyes of the public.

Mr. Chaika said that most organizations had “either suspended their operations or abandoned foreign financing” after the law went into effect, and that 22 groups continued to use funds from abroad in defiance of the law. He said the 215 organizations had received a cumulative 6 billion rubles, or about $180 million, in the course of three years. Seventeen organizations, he said, received financing through foreign embassies.

President Vladimir V. Putin has accused foreign governments of using nonprofit organizations to undermine Russia’s political system, but on Tuesday he suggested that Mr. Chaika show lenience.

“Analyze this practice to avoid errors and to see if any organization has been rated as a foreign agent, although it does not engage in politics,” he said, according to Interfax.