Putin admits defects in NGO law, pledges improvement

Putin admits defects in NGO law, pledges improvement
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060704/50874569.html

MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday
that a law tightening rules for non-governmental organizations working in
the country was flawed and promised it would be reconsidered.

The new law, which came into effect in April, set more stringent and
complicated financial reporting requirements for NGOs and has been
criticized in the West and liberal groups in Russia as being too
restrictive. Russian officials argued control over foreign NGOs in western
countries was much tougher.

"I admit that this document has shortcomings," Putin told a Civil-G8 2006
forum of NGOs in Moscow, which is being held ahead of a summit of the
world's industrialized nations in St. Petersburg later this month. Russia is
presiding over the G8 this year.

Over 700 people representing prominent rights organizations, including the
International Helsinki Group, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Charities
Aid Foundation, and others, are attending the NGO forum.

The NGO law was discussed by a working party of the human rights and legal
departments of the Council of Europe, which Russia is presiding over in
May-October 2006, in Strasbourg earlier this year following the adoption of
the law in late December.

Putin said he had sent Russia's justice minister to the consultations. He
also said that the working party had drafted proposed amendments to the law.

"I submitted these written proposals in the form of presidential amendments
to the document," he said.

The president also urged NGOs to prepare comments about how the law was
being enforced and promised that they would be taken into consideration.

Foreign NGOs have complained about difficulties in re-registering in Russia
after the law came into effect, Russian business daily Vedomosti said in
late June.

The Federal Registration Service said that none of the 40 foreign NGOs that
applied for registration after the introduction of the law had managed to
complete the process. It said there were between 500 and 2,000 foreign NGOs
operating in Russia, and that all of them had to re-register by October 18.

Sergei Tsyplenkov, the executive director of the Greenpeace office in
Russia, said that new regulations were so unclear that they enabled
officials to make harsh decisions at their own discretion.

But the registration service said the new registration procedure was
transparent and "purely technical," requiring only that a number of forms be
filled out, a task it said foreign NGOs had failed to do.


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