Russian authorities are holding up millions of dollars in international Western aid to Russian human-rights and democracy-building organizations, in what the groups say is another sign of growing Kremlin pressure on civil society.
The government has virtually stopped registering certain categories of foreign grants to Russian nonprofit groups, effectively paralyzing the work of a number of grass-roots organizations.
The U.S. government has brought the issue up with the Russian presidential administration and is watching developments very closely, a U.S. official said. Much of the U.S. government's funding for efforts to promote democracy in Russia, a Bush administration priority, goes through USAID.
"This is political pressure on the donors," said Lilia Shibanova, head of Golos, an electoral watchdog that has been waiting nearly two years for approval of its USAID funding. "The authorities want to tighten control of all foreign grants, especially those for human-rights projects."
A Russian government official denied programs are being deliberately held up, noting that approvals regularly take several months to complete.
Concerns about the delay come with Russia's nongovernmental organizations already bracing for a new law that will significantly expand state control of the country's nonprofit sector. The Kremlin's hardening approach to NGOs reflects a widely held suspicion in Moscow that foreign-funded civil-liberties groups are trying to foment a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution here. Russian intelligence officials have publicly accused Western spy agencies of using not-for-profit groups as a front for instigating unrest and weakening Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.
[Excerpt of article by Guy Chazan, The Wall Street Journal]
No comments:
Post a Comment