Fledgling Democracies

In news related to an earlier post, the lawyer for the NGO head who won a constitutional court showdown this week was attacked late Thursday, RIA Novosti reports. Skinheads allegedly beat the attorney on the head repeatedly with wooden sticks, and one attacker said he had “a mission to kill the lawyer.”

The “smuggling” case against Aslamazyan had press freedom significance - the NGO she ran trained broadcast journalists and more than 2,000 Russian journalists had directed a letter protesting her arrest to former president Putin her arrest prompted more than 2,000 Russian journalists to send an open letter of protest to former-president Vladimir Putin.

A case highlighting the crackdown by Russian authorities on NGOs with Western ties was decided today in favor of Manana Aslamaziyan, former head of an organization that helped train journalists and which was funded largely by U.S. sources.

Aslamaziyan had been charged with smuggling after failing to declare cash worth about $12,400 as she passed through Sheremetyevo airport in January of 2007. In the months following her arrest, her NGO was raided by police, its bank accounts were frozen and a new charge of tax evasion was brought against Aslamaziyan, who fled to Paris.

But today’s decision found the smuggling charge to be unconstitutional, on the grounds that the government’s definition of “large sums of money” was simply too vague. Reason to be cautiously optimistic? Aslamaziyan’s lawyer thinks so. Viktor Parshutkin, Aslamazyan’s lawyer, called Tuesday’s decision a “good omen” for the Russian legal system. He’s quoted in The Moscow Times story:

“This decision has made me very happy,” he said by telephone from St. Petersburg. “[The Constitutional Court] has demonstrated its independence from the political machinations of the authorities.”

The Prague Watchdog has a really intriguing interview with former journalist Timur Aliyev, who has joined the (pro-Moscow) administration of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, regarded by many as a ruthless war criminal.

Aliyev’s situation, and the subsequent interview, are confounding since he advocated an independent Chechnya for many years. The interviewer takes him to task for accepting a position with the very regime that seeks to quell the independence movement using all means of brutality, and presses him to explain what could’ve prompted such a change of heart.

Aliyev’s responses are disheartening for anyone with some faith in the power of NGOs. He said:

And for about one and a half years now my own experience has been telling me that at present it’s impossible to change anything in the situation that has developed both in Chechnya and in Russia as a whole if one remains within the sector of non-governmental organizations. In other words, that sector is a resource with limited possibilities, and its impact on society and the power of government tends towards zero. I’ve long believed that it has exhausted itself, and about a year and a half ago I started to think about finding new and more effective methods of influencing public life and the state.

There’s more:

I’ve been associating with our [NGO] activists for quite a long time, I know them well, have worked in that sector myself. In the people who concentrate there I never saw a desire to influence anything – and not only that, but even an idea that might make such social forces and organizations necessary.

Many simply used the NGOs as a platform to promote their own personal careers, and working with such people made it difficult to achieve results of any kind.

Ouch.

A Russian NGO had its appeal to overturn the government’s ruling that it must dissolve thrown out of court this week, the Coalition for Democracy in Russia has reported. Sodeystvie (translation: “Assistance”), which helps refugees and forced migrants integrate into society, was found to be non-compliant with the ultra strict (and equally controversial) 2006 law regulating NGOs.

Critics call the law a front for government officials bent on extending broad powers meant to “weaken critical voices.” Oversight of groups who receive foreign funding is particularly stifling, as I alluded to in this earlier post. Groups can be dissolved for filing documentation “improperly,” a distinction so intentionally vague it includes typos.

The 2006 NGO law and it’s implications are likely to be recurring topics on this blog…it’s another example of how Russia’s boldness in what the West considers highly dubious moves towards authoritarianism are snowballing and really starting to impact Russian society.

A report by Human Rights Watch has probably the most thorough critique of the mandate and documentation of its effects thus far. So you get the gist of it, here’s the opening statement:

Over the past eight years, the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin has engaged in efforts to weaken beyond recognition the checks and balances inherent in a truly democratic political system. A recent aspect of these efforts has been a policy to subject Russia’s vibrant civil society to greater scrutiny and control, through a 2006 law that gives the government broad powers to regulate the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The government has also used other measures, such as the amended 2002 anti-extremism law and a variety of administrative regulations, to target organizations that work on controversial issues, may be capable of galvanizing public dissent, or that receive foreign funding. This report documents the corrosive impact the 2006 law and other government measures have had on civil society in Russia. It demonstrates how these policies are aimed at weakening critical voices in Russia and have profoundly undermined independent activism.

A great interview has appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations website with an expert on Georgia and the Transcaucasus region, Elizabeth Fuller.

She does a good job explaining the motives behind Russia’s stance on Georgia and a number of the other already- or possible-breakaway republics, including (once again) the Georgia/Russia/Abkhazia spy plane saga. Of Russia/Georgia she says:

Russia will do anything to weaken Georgia without caring how the international community responds. But at the same time, the Russian leaders have a very cool head. They know exactly how far they can go in baiting Georgia and there is a red line beyond which it would be counterproductive to proceed.

It’s a substantial article and very much worth reading for anyone with an interest in the ever-changing region. And it’s really hard not to respect someone like Fuller who has a good handle on so many complex relationships there.

A Russian NGO calling itself the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, which aims to challenge Western views of Russia, has published a book theorizing that the events leading up to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, as well as the toppling of Slobodan Milosovec in Serbia and Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili’s rise to power all were masterminded by forces in Western countries.

The analysts who make the case point, in particular, to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a group the authors say used American funds to resist Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian candidate. Nonsense, says spokesman Aleksandr Chernenko: “The money we received from Western donors was allocated specifically for monitoring the election. After that we haven’t got a penny from anyone.”

Regardless of the credence (or lack thereof) of the allegations the book makes, it’s premise does put the spotlight on just what rights and responsibilites foreign NGOs have when their motives go beyond providing humanitarian aid, and also seek to affect a nation’s politics. Its precisely the concern behind Russia’s decision to closely monitor all foreign NGO activity.

The Discovery Institute’s Russia Blog has a great piece re: the above-referenced Institute for Democracy and Cooperation.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is urging the new Armenian President, Serzh Sargsian, to investigate clashes between security forces and opposition demonstrators following February 19 elections in the country.

Opposition supporters claiming the elections were marred by fraud held ten days of peaceful protests in the capital city of Yerevan before forces moved in to disperse the crowds. Eight people died in the resulting violence, and hundreds were injured.

A state of emergency was declared, and a complete ban on public rallies was instituted. HRW alleges the government detained protesters, denied them lawyers and mistreated them while in police custody. Newspapers were censored, and the opposition media were kept from publishing. Amendments to the law on public assembly severly restricting public gatherings were made by the the National Assembly before it lifted the state of emergency, resulting in criticism from several European organizations.

Says HRW’s Holly Carter: “The new Armenian leader is facing serious challenges. He should take decisive steps to investigate the excessive use of police force and lift restrictions on freedom of assembly.”

President Sargsian was inaugerated April 9.