Je Suis Levada

The leaders of the leading sociological organizations of Russia made a request to revise the decision to assign the Levada Center the status of a "foreign agent". The application is published on the website of the association of market researchers and public opinion.

“The reputation of this organization as an authoritative independent source of information, which makes a significant contribution to the exchange of information about the state and moods of Russian society, is recognized as the scientific community both within the country and abroad,” sociologists note. “The inclusion of a research organization known in Russia as the Levada Center, in the register of“ foreign agents ”will create significant problems for all Russian research companies.”

"Conducting sociological studies, including the study of public opinion, including the publication, analysis and discussion of their results, is scientific rather than political activity. These sociological research only reflect the objectively existing socio-political views and beliefs of the country's citizens, but do not form them," the statement said.

The application was signed, in particular, the general director of VTsIOM, Valery Fedorov, President of Thomas Alexander Oslon, chairman of the Board of Directors of Niccolo M Igor Mintusov, director of the TNS RUSSIA registration marketing studies Evgeny Popov.

According to Vedomosti, in the Oirmo there were two positions regarding the statement. A number of sociologists only wanted to protect the Levada Center, however, others spoke about the need to oppose the law on "agents" as a whole.

“The purpose of the letter is wider than the support of us, and we agree with this. The expansion interpretation of the Law on Foreign Agents creates the conditions for reducing the system of society and polls,” said the deputy director of the Levada Center, Aleksey citizens. “This is a step towards compressing the space where intellectuals that are engaged in sociology can conduct their research and comment on their ideas about their ideas about the authorities scientific truth and its point of view.

On September 5, the Ministry of Justice included the Levada Center in the list of "foreign agents" . If the Ministry of Justice’s decision cannot be challenged, Gudkov explained, it is possible that the levada center will have to be closed. “Because with such a stigma, conducting public opinion polls is simply impossible,” he explained.

The next day, the director of the NPO Lev Gudkov said that the Levada Center will appeal the decision of the Ministry of Justice in court . Studies of the Levada Center, some of which last more than 20 years, are funded by the distribution of funds from commercial orders, the head of the NPO noted. “If we refuse this, we will have to reduce the entire range of our research,” Gudkov emphasized. He noted that the studies, on the basis of which NPOs were recognized as an “ino -agent”, were not financed at the expense of the US Department of Defense and did not concern political issues.

On September 9, Gudkov said that Russian legislation on non-profit organizations opens up opportunities for the complete arbitrariness of administrative bodies due to the blurry definition of the concepts of “political activity” and “foreign financing”. "For our country, for decades, divorced from the conditions for the development of modern social knowledge, which has been in the position of a deep intellectual province, this means the prospect of further conservation of scientific archaic and degradation. The misunderstanding of this threatens not just isolationism or chronic decrease in human and social capital in our country, but by turning it into a reserve of poor and aggressive population, which consoles itself with illusions national superiority and exclusivity, ”the director of the Levada Center emphasized.

Repressions threaten not only sociology, Gudkov notes. “They will finish with sociology - they will go to history, economics, genetics, physics and other sciences, as it was in the Stalin years,” he warned.