Russia: Elections fail to bring hope to civil society

The Russian parliamentary and presidential elections, held on March 2nd confirmed what many had guessed: Dimitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin's government, is to be Russia's new leader. The official figures say that he won by a staggering 70% of votes, but critics are quick to accuse Medvedev of being jointly responsable (with Putin) for the growing authoritarianism in the country.

A few days prior to the elections Amnesty International's Freedom limited report highlighted that: "The space for human rights activists, independent organizations and media freedom in the Russian Federation has, over recent years, been gradually and progressively curtailed", and that: "in the run up to the elections the clampdown on freedoms of assembly and expression has been particularly visible. The authorities violently dispersed some opposition demonstrations, while pro-government events went ahead without interference. Human rights activists and journalists who monitored demonstrations and public meetings were harassed by law enforcement bodies".

Anna Dobrovolskaya is program coordinator for the educational department at the International Youth Human Rights Movement, an international NGO and network of young pro-human rights activists and NGOs with headquarters in Voronezh, 600 km south of Moscow.Vita Europe asked her to comment on what the future has in store for Russian civil society, and what changes the new government is likely to bring.

How has Russian civil society met the election of Dimitry Medvedev?
Russian civil society does not place its hopes in the newly elected government. The only change it believes it will bring is the further exasperation of the general situation in society, that is to say increase radicalism and foment new authoritarianism. Most people working in the NGO sector are sure that the situation will get worse with the new government and president. Legislation, public opinion and human rights and civil activists will all be affected.

Many NGO reports highlight the pressure that the government puts on the independent media, its refusal to cooperate with civil organizations in different spheres and the bad light it casts on human rights and civil organizations. The general public perceives we NGO workers all are spies, ?western agents? working to bring about revolution and grasp the power.

In your opinion, what are the greatest challenges facing civil society in Russia today?
Aside from the general political situation, which is always a challenge for civil society, independent initiatives and human rights work, I think that the main challenge is the youth of the Russian NGO sector. It lacks the tradition of carrying out social, public non-political activity. For many years the Soviet Union?s non profit sector existed either as a social help to vulnerable groups or as a dissident protest movement against the soviet regime.

Now it is necessary to create mechanisms of public participation, with the understanding that people, citizens, can solve many problems by themselves and that they should not wait for the almighty government to hand out good. We must also increase and develop our knowledge and understanding of human rights. Firstly, their existence must be acknowledged, this is an important step if they are to be defended and if the state is to become a partner or manager, and not a master.

There is little understanding of the difference between what it means to defend human rights and what political activism is. This leads all kinds of activism to be mixed together which makes human rights activists vulnerable to political manipulation and leads the work of NGOs to be broadly misunderstood.

Finally, there is the challenge posed by xenophobia, radicalism, militarism and authoritarianism. These affect all spheres and obviously run counter to the aims of social work; they are hard to fight against and really form the foundations of general political situation here because people approve strict policy and control by the government.

What would you say are the greatest challenges facing young people in Russia today?
We call the challenge of youth a ?motivational crisis?, which means that young people often do not know what they want. In large part youth initiatives are formally organized from above, by the government or local authorities so informal movements are marginalized. This increases distrust towards social activism and young people often do not believe in possible changes; they are intimidated and end up preferring entertainment and not real action. In the meantime, youth NGOs, young human rights and civil activists tear themselves away from this reality, they go abroad, study in non-formal courses and seminars and discover more and more knowledge. So while they move forwards, their non-activist friends stay the same, wishing things around them not to change.

What effect did the May 2006 law granting a great deal of government control over NGOs have on Russian civil society?
That law had one of the worst effects on the civil society since 1990s. It established many norms restricting NGO activities, created burdenous reporting obligations and granted the authorities an extended power of control. Coupled with various limitations on assemblies and freedom of expression as well as ambiguous and repressive anti-extremist legislation, it creates a restrictive atmosphere for any type of independent activities. According to the new law it became more difficult to register an NGO, they are subject to thorough examinations and are required to provide reports. The sanctions for failing to abide by these rules go up to liquidation. The law also regulates activities of foreign NGOs in Russia and many of them had to limit their activities or at all leave Russia.
Due to the general hostility of the government to esteemed foreign influence, it also became more difficult to work with foreign charitable founds. The few Russian foundations that have been created are reluctant to fund activities that are deemed by the government as inappropriate.

Since the law come into force many NGOs have suffered from its effects. The NGO I work with – the Youth Human Rights Movement, which is one of the largest, well known and most active international youth NGOs in the country – also suffered. Even though we are one of the biggest international NGOs in Russia, it was declared inactive and stripped of its legal status as a penalty for failing to submit annual reports to the regional branch of the Federal Registration service in Nizhy Novgorod, which is where International YHRM is registered. The fact that the reports indeed were sent to the federal office of FRS, as provided by the law wasn?t taken into account. The YHRM wasn?t notified of the court hearings and the decision was taken behind closed doors. Ironically, we?ve been one of the vocal critics of the new NGO legislation and now were forced to defend ourselves. FRS at first refused to admit it was wrong and only broad-bases international solidarity campaign in our support made them admit their mistake and withdraw the charges.

Although quite symptomatic of the general situation, this is just one case. There are more examples, as well information on legal terms in Human Rights Watch's report on freedom of association that we contributed to (see report).

What websites, blogs or social networking websites do you use most frequently?

• www.HRwold.ru: The resource World of Human Rights which serves the web-sites of many public campaigns conducted by YHRM and partner organizations for several years;
• www.HRO.org: Human Rights portal in Russia;
• The best news web-portals www.polit.ru, www.lenta.ru are not available in English, unfortunately.ì
• www.civitas.ru: The former website of an all-Russian civil congress web-site, a coalition of independent NGOs and pro-democratic political parties. It now serves as an information agency for civil society organisations.
• www.mhg.ru: The Moscow Helsinki Group web-site, one of the oldest and biggest human rights organizations in Russia.

More info:

• www.yhrm.org: The web-site of international network Youth Human Rights Movement (available in Russian and English).