Committee print
Download 0.63 Mb. View original pdf
|
| ters, Sept. 18, 2012. US. Pro-Democracy Groups Pulling Out Of Russia Reuters, Dec. 14, 2012; National Democratic Institute, Russia Overview, https://www.ndi.org/eurasia/russia (visited Dec. 11, 2017). Alec Luhn, American Ngo to Withdraw From Russia After Being Put on Patriotic Stop List ’’ The Guardian, Jul 22, 2015. The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Civic Freedom Monitor Russia, http:// www.icnl.org/research/monitor/russia.html, (updated Sept. 8, 2017). Melissa Hooper & Grigory Frolov, Russia’s Bad Example, Free Russia Foundation, Human Rights First, Feb. 2016. Statement of Michael McFaul, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain, Hearing before the US. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 17, 2007. McFaul became US. Ambassador to the Russian Federation in 2012. Ambassador Daniel B. Baer, US. Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Mind the GONGOs: How Government Organized NGOs Troll Europe’s Largest Human Rights Conference US. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Sept. 30, 2016. would shutdown its mission amidst pressure from the Kremlin. 68 USAID was not alone by December of that year, the International Republican Institute (IRI) announced it was closing its office on orders from the Russian government, and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) closed its office in Russia and moved its staff out of the country. 69 In January 2015, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation announced it was closing its Moscow office after the Duma asked the Justice Ministry to investigate whether a select group of organizations, including MacArthur as well as the US- based Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Freedom House, should be declared undesirable and banned from the country. 70 By June 2017, the Russian government had listed OSF, NDI, IRI, and eight other organizations as ‘‘undesirable.’’ 71 Legal and administrative tactics used during Putin’s tenure to create headwinds against the work of independent civil society organizations have not only muted criticism of his own regime at home and abroad, but have afforded other governments a roadmap to similarly deflect criticism. Research by Human Rights First published in February 2016 cites at least fourteen countries where Russia has provided a bad example that may have inspired other governments to introduce or pass restrictive NGO laws this includes countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan traditionally viewed by Russia as within its geographic sphere of influence, as well as countries further afield such as Ethiopia, Cambodia, Egypt, and Ecuador. 72 The Kremlin has also sought to co-opt civil society by devoting massive resources to the creation and activities of state-sponsored and state-controlled NGOs.’’ 73 Commonly referred to as ‘‘GONGOs’’ Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations, such groups are used to toe a government-friendly line or to promote alternative narratives to counter the work of legitimate Russian and international human rights NGOs. As one former US. ambassador to the OSCE described it, ‘‘GONGOs are nothing more than the real-world equivalent of the Internet troll armies that insecure, authoritarian, repressive regimes have unleashed on Twitter. They use essentially the same tactics as their online counterparts—cre- ating noise and confusion, flooding the space, using vulgarity, intimidating those with dissenting views, and crowding out legitimate voices.’’ 74 An expert from the National Endowment for Democracy has noted that Russia sinks extensive resources into VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 20 Christopher Walker, Dealing with the Authoritarian Resurgence Authoritarianism Goes Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
|