Human rights lawyer Karinna-Moskalenko highlighted Russian authorities' harrassment of NGOs and the deterrent effect of selective executions of activists
Russia provides a challenging “test case” for the Obama administration’s approach to promoting democracy while engaging authoritarian regimes, a Washington meeting heard this week.
While President Dmitry Medvedev was ostensibly committed to modernization, Russia needs “broader institutional changes, including rule of law”, said Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Last weekend’s events were part of a “pattern of growing intolerance of dissent and closing of political space.
He highlighted an “epidemic” of restrictions on civil society in Russia and beyond. At least 28 states have introduced new constraints on NGOs, including prohibitions on funding for unregistered groups, as in Egypt and China where a recent memorandum of understanding with USAID includes such curbs.
Leading human rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko cited the experience of her own group, the International Protection Center, as typical of the harassment experienced by Russian NGOs. The tax authorities launched an investigation and threatened to prosecute the not-for-profit group, purportedly for failing to pay taxes on its “profits” – a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy.
The authorities deserved some credit for accepting the streamlining of procedures at the European Court of Human Rights, she said. Some 30,000 of the court’s 110,000 pending cases emanated from Russia, largely from the Caucasus. But the Kremlin’s move is clearly a concession to international opinion linked to the imminent recommencement of proceedings against her client, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The prosecution of Khodorkovsky, one of the world’s richest men, sent a signal to every Russian citizen that they are impotent once the executive turn against them, said Moskalenko. Similarly, the selective executions of activists like Anna Politkovskaya and Natasha Estemirova serve as a deterrent against challenging the power structure.
Posner rejected the suggestion that the “reset” strategy reflected a reversion to realism, insisting that the administration had a strategic approach to expanding political space for Russian civil society. But it is simply hard to identify ways to actively support Russian democrats in the absence of forms of leverage in aid and trade.
Defending the Obama administration’s promotion of a civil society dialog involving less-than-civil Russian government figures, Posner said that it was a “work-in-progress”. Michael McFaul, the US government co-chair, is very committed to advancing democracy and human rights, but his Russian counterpart clearly “has a different perspective.”
Vladislav Surkov, co-chair of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Civil Society Working Group, was recently described as “one of the masterminds behind Russia’s authoritarian course.”
As Russian analyst Vladimir Kara-Murza notes:
After Vladislav Surkov’s appointment to the U.S.-Russia group two dozen leading Russian human rights activists, including Sergei Kovalev, Lev Ponomarev and Ludmila Alexeeva, appealed to Mr. Medvedev to reconsider his decision, stating that Mr. Surkov is well-known for “deliberately constructing barriers to civil society.” Seventy-one members of the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, wrote to President Obama urging a boycott of the bilateral group until the Kremlin replaces Mr. Surkov “with someone who has not been involved in establishing oppressive and undemocratic policies.”
- Karinna Moskalenko also participated in a forum panel on “The Rule of Law in Russia” alongside Robert Amsterdam and Andrei Illarionov.
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