Vice-Speaker of Federation Council offers putting NPOs on "patriotic stop-list" for work in Northern Caucasus

Foreign non-profit organizations (NPOs) that implement educational and religious projects in Northern Caucasus will be added to the "patriotic stop-list" in order to later stop their work in Russia. This was stated by Ilyas Umakhanov, the Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that since 2012 Russia operates the Law "On Non-Profit Organizations", which demands from the NPOs funded from abroad and engaged in political activities to get registered as "foreign agents".

On July 7, the Federation Council presented its version of the "stop-list", including 12 foreign NPOs. In the future, the list will be complemented with organizations that "under plausible pretexts operate in Northern Caucasus," said Ilyas Umakhanov.

As examples, he cited construction of mosques, sending children to study at foreign religious schools and other educational projects.

"This is the tactics used by radical organizations that focus at Northern Caucasus," the "Interfax" quotes Umakhanov as saying.

The "patriotic stop-list" will affect primarily not foreign organizations, but Russian ones, who cooperate with them, said Lev Levinson, an expert of the Human Rights Institute.

Svetlana Gannushkina, the Chair of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, is sure that the formation of the list of "undesirable organizations" is another step of the authorities towards destruction of the civil society.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.