Foreign Ministry: NPO checks - restoring order

Checks of non -profit organizations initiated by the Russian authorities are not repressions, but restoring order in their activities. As Interfax reports, the official representative of the Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich stated. "There are no goals that pursue the implementation of repressals or other punishing events. Everything is carried out within the framework of the law," he said.

"We are simply trying to restore order in the activities of foreign non -profit organizations, that's all. We do not do anything unusual, these control measures were planned in December last year and are carried out in order to clarify the situation with the implementation of the relevant mandates of these non -governmental organizations, their compliance with the legislation of Russia," Lukashevich said.

According to him, President Putin gave a direct assignment to the Commissioner for Human Rights to Vladimir Lukin "to nourish him with relevant information on how inspections are carried out, whether there are any excess measures that violate the current legislation."

Earlier on Thursday, First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buppman said that Russian NPOs receive funding from abroad, but registration for obtaining the status of a “foreign agent”, provided for by the law adopted last year, is not held. "The situation is such that financing is ongoing, no one is essentially registered," said Buppman.

When asked if it is possible that “foreign agents” will officially appear in Russia, according to the results of the inspections of NPOs, the boxman said that “most likely yes”.

On March 28, the Prosecutor General’s Office explained the inspections of NGOs, which have been going on in recent weeks throughout Russia, information about the possible conduct of extremist activities. Earlier, the prosecutor's office claimed that the conducted checks are planned.

A number of Russian NPOs filed lawsuits against the Prosecutor General in connection with sudden unregulated checks of their activities that have been going on for the past few weeks. In addition, the Memorial, the Public Verdict Foundation and other organizations made requests to the prosecutor's office. They consider checks illegal.

On March 29, the representative of the State Department Victoria Nuland said that the United States was concerned about the inspections of Russian NPOs and a number of adopted laws. The scale of these checks, she said, inspires fears that "this is a kind of witch hunt." In response, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Lukashevich, called the Nuland statement "cynical provocation", and the US reaction is "inadequate".

Meanwhile, on April 1, it became known about the first fines following the results of inspections. In Novocherkassk, the Rostov Region, the prosecutor's office fined the Catholic parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary for 450 thousand rubles for violation of fire safety rules (Article 20.4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). In addition, a fine of 27 thousand rubles under the same article was appointed rector of the church Alexei Polisco.

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin became interested in the inspections of the NPO. The Ombudsman collects information about checks to present it to President Vladimir Putin. Lukin noted that the Ombudsman apparatus turned to some human rights organizations where the checks came, with the question of how legally the controllers acted.

Lukin said that on March 29, during a meeting with Putin, he mentioned NPO checks and expressed surprise with their scale and simultaneousness. At the same time, the Ombudsman noticed that so far it has no information about the fines assigned to the NGOs.