Rafto Price laureate Lidija Yusupova sees gloomy future for Russian NGO’s

Lidija Yusupova is one of the leading human rights defenders in the Russian Federation. For several years she has identified, documented and reported human rights violations in Chechnya: a region that is marked by violence and lawlessness. For her work she was awarded the Rafto Prize in 2005 and last week it was revealed that she is among the 191 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize 2006. Since Yusupova established the NGO Memorial in 2000, she has witnessed the working environment for human rights organisations worsening more and more. The new NGO-law will certainly not make things easier.

Transparent
One of the consequences of the new legislation is that all NGO’s in the Russian Federation have to register again. According to Yusupova, this gives the authorities to investigate all organisations thoroughly. The final purpose of the legislation is to make the Russian civil society completely transparent in order to make it entirely controllable. “One of the purposes of the new law is to make it transparent in order to make ease the surveillance.” Yusupova made it clear that the goal is not to expel (human rights) organisations. In fact, the Russian government wants to show the international community that the Russian Federation has a vibrant civil society. This is one of the reasons why the Chechen Republic houses officially far more NGO’s than it in reality does. Many of the 400 registered NGO’s in the Chechen Republic are, according to Yusupova, in fact so-called gongo’s: government-organised non-governmental organization.

Control
For Norwegian (and other non-Russian) organisations that cooperate with Russian partners, like the Human Rights House Foundation, Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the environmental organisation Bellona, the new legislation will have dramatic consequences. According to Yusupova, after April 10, all financial support to Russian organisations will have to be approved by the Russian authorities. This will certainly have a dramatic impact on humanitarian aid work that is performed within the Russian borders.

Appeal
February 23 the Rafto Foundation also presented an appeal signed by 13 Rafto Prize laureates (among whom Nobel Prize winners Shirin Ebadi and Kim Dae-jung), in which they urge the UN to take its responsibility regarding Chechnya:
“We call for the United Nations to appoint an Independent Commission to examine and analyze the information submitted by States, international humanitarian organizations, or other persons or bodies, as well as such further information as the Commission may obtain through its own investigations or efforts, with a view to providing the United Nations with its conclusions on the evidence of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international law –the legislation against terrorism included- committed in and in relation to the conflict in the Chechen Republic.”

Memorial
The war in the Chechen Republic is one the largest humanitarian crises in the world and certainly the biggest within Europe’s borders. For human rights defenders, the region is extremely difficult to work in. Many defenders have been killed, disappeared, tortured jailed or harassed in another way. In 2000 Yusupova was a central figure in founding human rights centre Memorial in her hometown Groznij. Memorial assists people in finding back relatives that have disappeared, they help bringing people who are in immediate danger outside the republic and they represent people who have been seriously harassed in the Russian juridical system or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.