The Ecology Watchdog of the North Caucasus, an environmental NGO involved in battling wildfires in southern Russia, has been labelled a “foreign agent," Russia’s Justice Ministry announced Wednesday.
The
decision was made after an “unplanned inspection of the documents”
revealed that the NGO met the criteria to be named “foreign agent,” the
ministry said in an online statement. Under a law signed by Russian
President Vladimir Putin in 2012, NGOs which receive foreign funding and
are engaged in vaguely-defined “political activity” are required to
identify themselves as “foreign agents."
The Ministry did not
specify what kind of political activity the NGO was involved in, or from
where it received its foreign funding.
The move follows an attack on volunteer firefighters with environmental activist group Greenpeace
group in the area. The group had been invited to the
region by the Ecology Watchdog of the North Caucasus, to deal with
wildfires in the Krasnodar region and neighboring republic of Adygeya.
Greenpeace reported that
their group had been attacked by unidentified men in masks on Sept. 9.
The attackers severely injured several members and demanded that the
activists “got the hell out of here” and “went back to your America.” Several days after the attack, state-run TV channel
Rossiya accused the group of starting the very fires they came
to extinguish and acting in the interests of the U.S. government.
Hundreds
of Russian NGOs have been locked in battle with the Justice Ministry
since the “foreign agents” law came into force four years ago. Many are
unwilling to accept the negative connotations of the Soviet-era label,
as well as the time-consuming inspections to which "foreign agents" must
submit. A number of NGOs in Russia have shut down as a direct result of
the law.
