Gudkov: Levada Center on the verge of closing

The warning of the prosecutor’s office received by the Levada Center on the inadmissibility of violation of the law on “foreign agents” can lead to the subsequent closure of the organization. This is stated in a statement by the director of the center of Lev Gudkov.

“The warning is put by the“ Analytical Center of Yuri Levada ”in an extremely difficult situation, practically forcing him to terminate his activities as an independent research sociological organization leading systematic polls of public opinion in Russia,” the statement said. “We are talking about the freedom of scientific activity and the dissemination of research results,” Gudkov emphasizes.

On the same day, it became known that a similar warning was received by the subsidiary of VTsIOM - the Fund for the Promotion of the Study of Public Opinion. The head of the VTsIOM VALIRY FEDOROV, unlike Gudkov, is not going to challenge the actions of the prosecutor's office and does not consider them "punitive sanctions".

The prosecutor’s office interprets “Analytical articles and the publication of the results of sociological research as“ political activity, ”Gudkov notes in his statement.“ The prosecutor's office actually hangs our organization on a hook of possible sanctions, on the one hand, and undermines its authority and business reputation, on the other, ”the director of the Levada Center writes. He emphasizes that foreign funds make up a small part of the budget of the budget NPOs - in different years, about 1.5-3 percent.

Gudkov notes that the contesting in a judicial proceeding of the warning of the prosecutor's office "is fraught with the collapse of the organization of research, irreversible scientific and human losses" and, moreover, will be too long. "Therefore, this option, even in the case of a positive outcome of trials, in principle, does not change the new state of things that make it impossible to continue the previous work of the independent research institute," he writes. According to Gudkov, the center’s leadership is currently conducting consultations with lawyers and considering possible exits from the current situation.

The check in the Levada Center began on April 24. It was led by the Savelovsky inter -district prosecutor's office of Moscow. On May 7, Izvestia, citing a source in the supervisory authority, reported that the Prosecutor General’s Office, following the results of the audit, recognized the Levada Center “foreign agent”.

On May 14, Gudkov said that the Levada Center would not register as a "foreign agent". “This is absolutely excluded,” he said. Gudkov did not agree that his organization was conducting political activity. “The study of politics is not a policy itself, as the treatment of the disease is not the disease itself,” he emphasized.

"The authorities identify foreign financing with a conspiracy against national security and consider everything that is aimed at criticism of the current government, as is customary in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes," Gudkov said.

The law on "foreign agents" may be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights, Gudkov believes. "In the field of human rights protection, there is a priority of international law over national. And the Law on NPOs contradicts international law. The European Court may require international sanctions," the center director said.

Earlier, in an interview with Izvestia, the head of the Levada Center expressed the opinion that the repression against sociologists "fit into the general trend of the Putin regime." Gudkov recalled that the other two leading sociological services - the public opinion fund and VTsIOM - work on orders of the presidential administration. According to him, the Levada Center "tells how it really is." "We show a fall in the Kremlin’s support, the percentage of the delegation of the regime, the growth of dissatisfied, the growth of doubts that Putin is fighting corruption, and is not tied to this. It fakes the nervousness of the authorities and makes such stupid acts," Gudkov said.