Law on fines on ‘foreign agent’ NGOs approved
On 31 October, the Federal Council approved the law on introducing administrative fines for NGOs who breach the regulations on ‘foreign agent’ status. Amendments have been made to the Russian Code on Administrative Offences (
КоАП) accordingly, reports RIA Novosti. The amendments to the Code had previously been part of the legislation on NGOs deemed foreign agents enacted by the Duma during the spring session; however the specifics of the administrative fines were not included in the legislation and were intended to be adopted separately in the autumn. The authors of the amendments stated that this was due to the procedural requirements for adopting such legislation, and in essence the proposals on fines are not going to change from the original text. Thus, the legislation is effectively divided in two, one element of which is the amendments to the Code. The law stipulates that NGOs deemed foreign agents that fail to submit the required information to the appropriate authorities face a warning or a fine of between 10,000 and 30,000 rubles for its employees, and of between 100,000 and 300,000 for the organisation itself. NGOs that fail to apply to be on the register of NGOs deemed foreign agents would face a proposed fine of between 100,000 and 300,000 rubles for individual employees, and between 300,000 and 500,000 rubles for the organisation. For NGOs which post information in the media without qualifying that this information has come from an NGO which is a ‘foreign agent’, the proposed fine would also be from 100,000 to 300,000 rubles for individual employees, and from 300,000 to 500,000 for the organisation. If an NGO deemed foreign agent continues to operate despite the decision to suspend its activities, the proposed fine would be from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles for the NGO management, and 3,000 to 5,000 rubles for its employees.
