Russian undesirable organizations law

• 1. Introduction

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  The Russian undesirable organizations law goes by a bureaucratic title, Federal Law N 129-FZ. President Vladimir Putin signed it on the 23rd of May 2015. It followed two earlier measures, the 2012 Russian foreign agent law and the Dima Yakovlev Law. Under this law, prosecutors can target any foreign group they judge a "threat to the foundation of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, the defense capability of the country or the security of the state." That designation alone can force an organization out of Russia. It can also send Russians who keep working with it to prison for years. What counts as a threat, and who decides?

• 2. Widening the Net

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  Supporters of the law first wanted simply to extend the existing foreign agent law to cover foreign noncommercial organizations. Once economic sanctions were imposed on Russia, they added economic provisions to the bill as well, according to the law's own proponents. That shift turned a narrow amendment into a broader tool touching both politics and finance. Nearly a decade later, on the 23rd of July 2024, the State Duma adopted a further change. Now any organization can be branded undesirable if its founders or participants are foreign government agencies, not just foreign NGOs. That widened definition set the stage for the fines and prison terms the law imposes on those it targets.

• 3. The Price of Contact

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  Violators who fail to disband after being declared undesirable face fines or a prison term of up to six years. Before that point, the organization already loses the right to hold public events in Russia or distribute promotional materials through mass media. Russian banks and financial institutions cannot work with it either. They must report any attempt by such a group to use their services to the state's financial watchdog.

  Individuals who cooperate with an undesirable organization face fines of their own and can be barred from entering Russia. Ordinary Russians who keep ties to a blacklisted group risk a similar range of penalties, from fines up to six years behind bars. Those penalties gave prosecutors a powerful incentive to start building a list of targets.

• 4. Building the Blacklist

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  On the 25th of May 2015, a member of the LDPR party sent prosecutors the first proposed list of undesirable NGOs. It named the think tank Carnegie Moscow Center and the international history and human rights society Memorial. It also named the Moscow offices of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

  On the 7th of July 2015, the news agency RIA Novosti published an alleged shortlist drawn up by the Federal Council of Russia. It named the US-based Open Society Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, the MacArthur Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. It also named the Polish-based Education for Democracy foundation and the East European Democratic Centre. Three Ukrainian groups appeared too: the Ukrainian World Congress, the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council and the Crimean Field Mission on Human Rights. After the Federal Council voted to recommend the MacArthur Foundation, the foundation announced it would close its Russian division, which had operated since 1992.

  In July 2015, the National Endowment for Democracy became the first organization Russian authorities officially blacklisted under the law. The Office of the Prosecutor General announced the decision on its website. It stated that NED's activities "pose a threat to constitutional order of the Russian Federation, defense potential and security of the state." Among NED's alleged violations were donations to organizations that independently monitor elections, along with undefined "political activities" and "discrediting service in the Russian armed forces."

  In November 2015, two branches of George Soros's charity network lost their standing in Russia. They were the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation. The Office of the Prosecutor General listed no specific infractions. It called their work "a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and the security of the state." Ahead of the March 2018 presidential election, two European election-monitoring organizations joined the list as well. By the time regulators finished with these individual cases, the list had grown far beyond a handful of names.

• 5. A List Beyond Russia

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  Russia's Ministry of Justice has declared 357 overseas and international organizations undesirable in Russia, including groups operating in Ukraine's occupied territories. Most of the affected organizations are based in Germany, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

  The list stretches across sectors with little in common. It reaches universities such as Yale, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. It reaches environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. It also reaches press and rights organizations, among them Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Transparency International and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Such a wide net drew reactions from well beyond Russia's borders.

• 6. Voices of Dissent

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  Russia's human rights ombudsperson, Ella Pamfilova, said giving the Prosecutor General power to designate groups undesirable without going to court contradicts the Russian constitution. She also condemned the absence of any right to appeal that decision.

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesperson described the law as an attempt to isolate and discredit civil society figures critical of the government. Britain's Minister for Europe, David Lidington, offered a blunt assessment. He called it "yet another example of the Russian authorities' harassment of NGOs and those who work with them in Russia."

  The US State Department said it was "deeply troubled" by the law and warned it would further restrict civil society's work in Russia. The Deputy Chief of the US Mission to the OSCE Permanent Council urged Russia to uphold its international obligations. He called on the government to respect freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the rule of law.

  Amnesty International warned the bill would "squeeze the life" from civil society, while Human Rights Watch said ordinary Russians would be hit hardest. Veteran activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva called the law "another step toward lowering the curtain between our country and the West."

  On the 13th of June 2016, the Venice Commission published its opinion on the law. It found several of the law's key terms too vague. These included the definition of a nongovernmental organization and what counts as "directing" or "participating in" a listed group's activities. It also pointed to the broad discretion granted to the Office of the Public Prosecutor and the lack of clear judicial guarantees. The commission argued that blanket bans, such as prohibitions on public events and information materials, should apply only in extreme cases. Those are cases where an organization poses a serious threat to state security or democratic principles. Anywhere else, it warned, such sanctions could conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights and its requirement of proportionality. Its recommendation was that any decision to list an organization should follow a judicial ruling, or at least remain open to judicial appeal. That is a safeguard the law as written does not provide.