What the hell are “foreign agents”?

I have a purely negative attitude to the recently adopted and sensational law on NGOs for several reasons. If this is the so-called “asymmetric response” to the passage of the Magnitsky Act by the US Congress, then it most of all reminds me of Saltykov-Shchedrin and the non-commissioned officer's widow who flogged herself because this law harms Russian society. The vast majority of NGOs, including those that receive funding from other countries, in particular from the United States, are engaged in matters that are important for Russia.

I have collaborated a lot and continue to cooperate with such NGOs that are engaged in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russia. They are doing an extremely important job. What the hell are they "foreign agents"?! Brad is.

They refer to the fact that, for example, in America there is such a procedure when certain organizations should officially be called agents of foreign states - this means, first of all, not NGOs, but lobbying organizations that lobby, I repeat, lobby for the interests of others foreign companies, countries, politicians, etc.

Not to mention that links to other countries absolutely not only do not work, but are actually shameless, because we refer only to those moments that suit us in order to prove our case in something.
And if we refer to the rules in other countries, then let's all the rules be the same in our country, I mean in matters of nominating political candidates, creating parties, in organizing voting methods, in freedom of the media, in exercising state control etc.

Then let's refer to it properly - really take it as a model. But these partial, I repeat once again, unscrupulous references, which can actually convince only those who know very little about what is happening inside their own country.

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The Foreign Agents Act was created in the US to fight the Nazis, but in the last half century it has been applied mainly to lobbyists. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was passed in the United States in 1938. They adopted it in order to somehow limit the activities of representatives of (overt and covert) European powers that encouraged American public opinion and American politicians to take the side of the Axis or Britain and France in the event of a war in Germany.

Original article here