Europe was alert

Pase put the Law on NPO "Four with a minus" immediately after reading the final edition of the scandalous law on NGOs, representatives of interested European organizations gave him their assessment. Recall that the law limiting the work of non -governmental organizations was published the day before, although President Vladimir Putin signed it on January 10.

The representative of the Austrian Embassy (this year this country presides in the European Parliament) told Gazeta that in the coming days the delegation of the Alpine Republic is going to speak to the European Union with a statement regarding the adoption of the NPC law. According to the representative, at the next meeting, Austria will try to make it clear to the Russian authorities that they will constantly monitor the situation unfolding in our country after the adoption of the law. “We welcome amendments, they, of course, were necessary to tighten control over terrorist and extremist organizations,” he said, “but we fear that amendments can cause a serious blow to civil society in Russia. The EU is going to do everything possible to prevent infringement of freedom of speech, own opinion and creation of societies and organizations in your country. ”

The Council of Europe in December last year conducted its own examination of the preparing bill immediately after its first reading in the State Duma. Then foreign experts proposed to make part of the amendments to him, which, in their opinion, would correspond to the European Convention on Human Rights. According to Nikolai Topornin, the director of the European Council Information Office in Moscow, most of the amendments were nevertheless entered the final editor of the document. “We have no special claims to the very text of the law, it does not contradict European standards,” Topornin told Gazeta. “But the Council of Europe is very worried about how it will be put into practice.” According to him, the problem of this document is in the vague of some formulations. On the one hand, one of its goals is to suppress terrorist activities and illegal money laundering. On the other hand, state power can put pressure on any non -governmental or non -profit organization if it contradicts the Constitution or the current legislation. The interpretation of this item can be very wide. In addition, the European Council is wary of information that now a special authorized body will appear in Russia engaged in monitoring the NGOs. If he sets his goal to stop the activities of any non-governmental organization, he will be able to do this without waiting for a court decision. It is enough to start a tax audit with the seizure of documents for many months. “Now, by and large, in any idea, if you wish, you can consider the threat to the state,” said the representative of the Council of Europe, “it all depends on the opinions of specific local officials. And we are not sure that all of them will be reasonable and loyal people. In this case, the law may pose a real threat to Russian democracy. Therefore, my personal assessment of this document is “four with a minus”.

However, not all European structures followed the news from Russia. For example, the OSCE representative in Vienna Kate Jinx was very surprised to learn that the NPO law had already been adopted. “In our organization, no one knows about the signing of this document. I think that after your call we will discuss it at one of our meetings, ”Jinx assured the newspaper.

01/18/2006 / Olga Pavlikova