Amendment named after Lyudmila Alekseeva

The anti-Americanism of the Russian people's deputies goes off scale every day, hour, minute. On Wednesday, December 19, the deputies are going to make amendments to the Anti-Magnit Law regarding Russian NGOs receiving grants from the United States.

The authors of the amendments, Andrei Lugovoy (LDPR), Igor Zotov (A Just Russia), Mikhail Starshinov (United Russia), propose to ban NGOs whose members, in addition to Russian citizenship, also have US citizenship. They want to ban the activities of non-governmental organizations, freeze their accounts and take away their property.

“These amendments are directed against me personally,” Lyudmila Alekseyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, told The New Times. - The deputies may well name this amendment after me. I am the only one among the heads of Russian NGOs who has American citizenship. I'm not going to give it up.

If the amendments to the law are passed, members of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) will file a complaint with the Constitutional Court because their constitutional right to engage in public activities will be violated. These amendments are directed against the MHG and against the International Society "Memorial".

Our organizations are not going to register as foreign agents and we have received grants from American private foundations. The MHG building was bought with money from the awards that the MHG and I personally received. The Memorial building is also his private property and was bought with American money. If the government tries to take away these buildings from us, then in return they will receive arbitration proceedings and a disgrace to their reputation.

And the MHG, as well as Memorial, will still work. Despite everything".