Public Chamber criticises amendments to NGO legislation

The new, significantly improved version of the law on non-profit-making organisations contains a number of drawbacks, members of the Public Chamber of Russia think. The new version of the bill allows of many proposals meeting requirements to the nation's present-day public life, the Chamber's statement notes. Moreover, the very concept of the bill actually changed by the second reading, RIA Novosti reports.

Even so, some of the bills' provisions will "actually lead to the establishment of a new, powerful bureaucratic machine," says the document.

Public Chamber members see one of the main flaws of the new version of the bill in the provision on annual inspections of public associations and non-profit-making organisations by a regulatory agency which is yet to be established.

Igor Yakovenko, Secretary General of the Journalists Union of Russia, has also criticised the passing by the Russian Duma of the law on non-profit-making and nongovernmental organisations, Interfax reports.

"That the Duma has passed the law on NGOs can be considered the state's official declaration of war on those elements of civil society that we still have. This is exactly the case when the necessity of the law equals to zero and the harm it does is great," Mr Yakovenko said on Friday.

In his view, the "passing of this law gives evidence that Russia is moving on from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."

"The difference between these notions is that an authoritarian system at least does not interfere in citizens' personal affairs - and public activities are personal affairs. With these developments, however, the next step will be that the state will peep into our beds meddling even in our private life," Mr Yakovenko noted.

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