Chairwoman of President Putin's Human Rights Commission Ella Pamfilova (right) receiving the order For Services to the Homeland, 4th degree, from Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) in 2003
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Putin Takes On Social Financing
// Agenda
Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear yesterday that the government will accept the strict control over the activities of public associations and noncommercial groups proposed in the amendments passed by the State Duma to a number of federal laws. He again stated that “the financing of political activity from abroad should be within the field of vision of the government.” Thus, as Kommersant has already suggested, the Kremlin is ready to make small concessions in order to hold on to the lever of state control over citizens' joint public activities. According to information obtained by Kommersant, that goal was placed before the Security Council some time ago.
Putin made a programmatic statement of state policy toward nonprofit organizations at a meeting with Ella Pamphilova, chairman of the President's Council on Cooperation in Developing Institutions of Civic Society and Human Rights. Pamphilova expressed her concern over amendments to the law “On Public Associations” and “On Noncommercial Organizations” passed in their first reading the day before by the Duma that would increase state control over the activities of those organizations. Putin replied that he would discuss the situation with the Duma leadership, “so that no steps in this sphere cause damage to civic society in Russia.”
He added decisively that “political activity in Russia should be maximally transparent and that means that all questions connected with the financing of political activity should be maximally transparent… In this connection, continuing financing from abroad of political activities in Russia should be within the field of vision of the government. Especially if it comes through government channels from other countries and those organizations functioning in Russia and engaged in political activities are in essence being used as instruments of the foreign policy of foreign states.”
Through all Putin's customary verbal flourishes, his point is clear. The Kremlin is ready to make certain compromises to soften the controversial amendments, but it will not under any circumstances give up its primary goal, taking control of all public and noncommercial organizations, whether that segment of society likes it or not.
The draft law “On Introducing Changes to Several Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation,” which has been passed in its first reading, in particular proposes a prohibition on the foundation of or membership in noncommercial organizations by foreigners who do not live permanently in the Russian Federation of by persons without citizenship. It also increases the number of reasons to refuse to register the organizations and gives registration agencies the right to demand to see the organizations' financial documents and audit their expenses for conformity to their chartered goals. Public associations that do not have the status of a legal entity will be required to inform registration agencies of their foundation.
The president's unbending position on these issues is directly related to issue of a “color revolution” in Russia, which the Kremlin views as one of its greatest political threats. Kommersant has obtained information that the topic of how to resist the “color threat” has been discussed at length in the tradition Saturday meetings between the president and the Security Council and noncommercial organizations have been identified as one of the main channels for the spread of the “color infection.” Kommersant's information indicated that the council has developed specific countermeasures, which include taking full stock of the noncommercial organizations active in Russia and toughening laws that regulate their activities in order to prevent any “destabilizing activities” by public groups.
That legislation was met with immediate disapproval in the West. Washington took an interest in the amendments long before they were passed. As the Chicago Tribune reported this week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is personally following developments with the amendments and raises the issue in every conversation she has with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Last week, Republican Congressman Jack Kemp and Democratic Senator John Edwards wrote a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush charging that the amendments “completely eliminate pluralism in Russia and contact between out societies.” They are demanding that Bush raise the topic in his discussion with Putin at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and protest the amendments “in extremely explicit terms.” “That law opens up an unthinkable perspective: Russia can be the chairman of the Big Eight and at the same time pass laws strangling all ties with the world community,” Edwards and Kemp said.
Bush did touch on the issue in the negotiations at Busan but, it seems, not too explicitly or convincingly. A Kommersant source at the U.S. State Department said that the presidents were unable to discussion the issue in full because Bush failed to show the necessary insistence. Nonetheless, official U.S. State Department representative Tom Case stated yesterday that Washington is concerned over the first reading of the bill and everyone there is counting on the bill not being passed.
Those hopes are obviously unfounded. In the best case, the Kremlin will agree to soften the amendments to show its willingness to listen to public opinion, as personified, for example, by the Public Chamber, 21 members of which have appealed to Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov to delay the discussion of the bill until the Chamber is fully formed. Elena Zelinskaya, Chamber member and vice president of Mediasoyuz, confirmed to Kommersant that 84 current members of the Chamber intend to add their support to the request at the next session express their objection to the “rushed discussion” of the controversial amendments.
At her meeting with Putin yesterday, Pamphilova placed her hopes not so much on the deputies as on the president. “The president is absolutely ready to meet halfway,” she told Kommersant. “At our meeting, I tried to tell him in detail about the danger of the law, which, in its present form, would be practically an irremediable blow to civic society. In the introduction, it says that the law is being passed with the aim of stabilization. But that is not real stabilization.” Maria Slobodskaya, head of the Institute for the Problems of Civic Society and member of the Public Chamber, also suggested that the president intends to meet public associations halfway. “But a strange situation arises,” she said, “when the president founds the Public Chamber and the main draft law for it is left beyond its field of vision.”
Representatives of the Duma majority told Kommersant that they would adhere to the president's opinion. One of the authors of the amendments, Chairman of the Dumas Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev, told Kommersant that every that Putin has said “corresponds to the conception of the bill.” The amendments' opponents, in his view, are objected to “specific clauses” that can be changed in the second reading since they are not conceptually meaningful. The amendments' opponents have no doubts about the immutability of the conception of the amendments. Independent deputy Viktor Pokhmelkin, an opponent of the bill, said, “They'll sweeten the bill, but that won't change the essence of the law.” Members of public associations agree with him. They say that the main idea of the law, the imposition of control over civic organizations, is contained in it conception and the law contains no other substantial content.
Dmitry Kamyshev, Mikhail Zygar, Irina Nagornykh, Viktor Khamraev
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 25, 2005
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