Russian authorities have launched investigations against an activist of Russia’s Parnas opposition party, Natalya Pelevina, RFE/RL reports.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the opposition leader being checked for her role in the aftermath of anti-Kremlin protests in 2012 received foreign funding to instigate a so-called “color” revolution through mass unrest in Moscow, Bloomberg reports:
A January survey by the Levada polling company showed that only 45 percent of Russians believe the country is on the right track, the lowest in two years. Putin has maintained his personal popularity, with an approval rating of more than 80 percent since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
“The authorities have been raising the pressure on us because we announced our plan to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections,” said Pelevina (above). “They’ve even opened separate criminal charges against me over a funny little gadget you can buy in any novelty store in the U.S.”
Pelevina was a co-founder of the so-called May 6 Committee that aided Russia’s political prisoners who took part in large-scale anti-Kremlin protests on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Ploshchad in May 2012. More than 10 people were sentenced to jail terms after the protests, The Moscow Times adds.
The harassment of opposition figures coincides with renewed efforts to curb international solidarity and assistance for Russia’s beleaguered democrats and civil society activists.
The United States is “deeply troubled” by Russian authorities’ effort to ban an “undesirable” American pro-democracy institute, a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday, POLITICO reports:
A request to ban the National Democratic Institute has been sent to the Russian Justice Ministry, according to a statement posted on the Russian Prosecutor-General’s website Thursday.
The NDI describes itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.” On its website it lists individual, corporate and governmental supporters, and expresses “special thanks” to the National Endowment for Democracy, U.S. aid agency USAID and the State Department. It says it closed its office in Russia in 2012, but continued to work with organizations there.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said in statement Thursday that Washington is “deeply troubled” by the move to ban NDI.
“We reject the notion that NDI and other international civil society organizations are a threat to Russia. NDI promotes openness and accountability in government, principles Russia should seek to embrace, not exclude or muzzle,” Kirby said. He said the “undesirables” law encroaches on freedom of association and called on the Kremlin to “cease restrictions on the work of civil society organizations in Russia.”
Russians are barred from working with organizations deemed to fall under the law, and the offices of such groups in Russia have been shut and their assets frozen, The New York Times adds:
With the National Democratic Institute, five organizations have now been added to the list, all American-linked. They include the nonprofit National Endowment for Democracy, and the Open Society Foundations, a group founded by the billionaire George Soros to help countries make the transition from Communism. The MacArthur Foundation, which is based in Chicago and which awards grants for activities related to higher education, human rights and limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, closed its offices in Russia in July.
Activists in Russia and farther afield have denounced the law as another government measure to stifle civil rights.
NDI said in a statement that the legislation “violates the basic rights of Russians to freedom of association and expression, which includes the ability to see, receive and impart information, including across borders.”
“NDI does not support any political ideology or political or electoral outcome, nor is it a grant-making organization,” it explains. “Rather, NDI facilitates international exchanges through study missions, consultations, workshops, conferences and the dissemination of materials.”
