Federation Council approves law on forced inclusion of NGOs in register of "foreign agents"

Today, the Federation Council has approved the law providing that the Ministry of Justice is entitled to include non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the register of "foreign agents" at its own discretion. It should be noted that in the Southern Federal District (SFD) and the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), there is a number of NGOs recognized as "foreign agents", which, however, refuse to get registered in that status.

On July 13, 2012, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted the Law "On Foreign Agents". The law provided that a non-governmental organization funded from abroad and engaged in political activities is to accept the status of a "foreign agent". The initiative has been criticized by members of the human rights organizations. They have challenged the normative act. However, the Constitutional Court has found it complying with the Russian Constitution. On February 8, 2013, a number of NGOs, including the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", filed a complaint against the law to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Today, the upper chamber of the Federal Assembly (the Federation Council) has approved the law initiated by Andrei Lugovoy, an MP of the LDPR (Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia). The law provides that the Ministry of Justice will be able to include NGOs in the register of "foreign agents" in case if those NGOs are considered to be "foreign agents", but failed to file relevant applications for registration as "foreign agents", the ITAR-TASS reports.

The normative act approved by the Federation Council also includes the amended list of grounds on which the Ministry of Justice is entitled to conduct unscheduled inspections of NGOs. Now, it will be possible, even if an NGO is not included into the register, but the Ministry of Justice receives information that the NGO serves as a "foreign agent".