CIVIL SOCIETY COUNCIL CHAIR PAMFILOVA DISCUSSES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 003190 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/24/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREL EAID RS SUBJECT: CIVIL SOCIETY COUNCIL CHAIR PAMFILOVA DISCUSSES NGO LEGISLATION AND G8 SUMMIT PLANS REF: MOSCOW 002502 Classified By: Amb. William J. Burns. For Reasons 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. In a March 24 meeting with the Ambassador and visiting Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia Thomas Adams, Ella Pamfilova, head of the Presidential body that oversees civil society issues, said her office would help monitor the controversial NGO legislation when it came into effect on April 18. She noted that her office was familiar with the implementing regulations and wanted to comment on them publicly, but the bureaucracy wanted to work in secrecy. Pamfilova promised to do her best to protect NGOs and individuals that were implicated in the recent British "spy" scandal. Pamfilova also discussed her plans for NGO events around the G8 Summit and the problems that the Russian-Belarusian Human Rights Commission faced in Belarus. She also will look into complaints about the treatment of Mikhail Trepashkin in prison. END SUMMARY. . NGO LEGISLATION -------------- ¶2. (C) In a March 24 meeting with the Ambassador and Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia Thomas Adams, Ella Pamfilova, Chair of the Presidential Council for Assistance to Development of Institutions of Civil Society and Human Rights, noted that the controversial NGO legislation would take effect on April 18. The main problem would not be with the law itself, but with how it was implemented. She hoped that the implementing regulations would decrease the vagueness of the law. Her office and some NGOs were familiar with the implementing regulations and wanted to comment on them publicly, whereas many bureaucrats wanted to work behind closed doors. She has an agreement with various international NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Carnegie Foundation, which will monitor implementation once the law comes into effect and report any problems to her office. She saw her role as being a critic to address any problems with the law. In contrast, Pamfilova argued, the Kremlin wanted to produce propaganda indicating that everything was fine with the legislation. After all the international attention paid to the legislation, it would be a matter of honor for the Kremlin to prove its critics wrong. ¶3. (C) Adams said many major donors at a recent forum in New York were glad that some of the suggested changes to the first draft of the legislation had been made. However, one of the organizations in attendance at the forum, the New Eurasia Foundation, had been accused of having links to British intelligence. Pamfilova replied that NGO leaders who were implicated in the "spy" scandal such as Andrey Kortunov of the New Eurasia Foundation, Lyudmila Alekseyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and Yuriy Dzhibladze of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights were part of her core group for organizing a recent G8 NGO forum (reftel). The scandal had not affected them too negatively, and they were still criticizing the government. She would do her best to make sure that such people would be around to criticize the government in the future. Pamfilova believed that the situation six months from now would be different, and the fallout from the "spy" scandal would dissipate. . NGO INVOLVEMENT IN THE G8 -------------- ¶4. (C) Pamfilova said the March G8 NGO forum had generated a great deal of interest among foreign and domestic NGOs that wanted to participate in future events. Pamfilova stressed that she did not want the NGO events to be dominated by Russian organizations, and she was looking for more foreign groups to participate. She had recently met with Rose Gottemoeller of the Moscow Carnegie Center to discuss conducting an event on nuclear security with Carnegie. Pamfilova said she was considering doing more NGO events, including a conference on social integration in Kazan from late May to early June and a roundtable on energy security in April in Khanty-Mansiy. She was also trying to schedule another meeting with the sherpas in May with a group of 10-20 experts from the NGO community. The next general NGO forum would take place on July 13-14. A major focus of the July forum would be internal problems of civil society in Russia, such as human rights and the NGO legislation, as well as issues of civil society and human rights around the world. She also wanted to engage anti-globalists so that there would be a serious dialogue about their concerns, instead of violent protests. The Ambassador offered to provide Pamfilova assistance with those NGO events. MOSCOW 00003190 002 OF 002 . BELARUS -------------- ¶5. (C) Pamfilova said that the Russian-Belarusian Human Rights Commission, of which she is a member, had experienced problems working in Belarus. Several of its members, including a journalist and Council on Foreign Affairs and Defense Policy Director Sergey Karaganov, had been banned from entering Belarus. Pamfilova reported that Lukashenko had personally complained to Putin about her. She noted that the Commission regularly met with Belarusian activists and put out a report every few months, but there was not much more they could do. In a separate March 24 meeting with PolMinCouns, Karaganov professed a higher level of satisfaction with the activities of the Russian-Belarusian Human Rights Commission, saying that he believed it was having a positive effect in a number of areas. . TREPASHKIN AND HUMAN RIGHTS -------------- ¶6. (C) The Ambassador raised with Pamfilova concern about the treatment of Mikhail Trepashkin in prison. Trepashkin was convicted of disclosing state secrets in connection with his investigation of possible FSB involvement in a series of 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow. Human rights leaders have written a letter to G7 ambassadors about his treatment. Pamfilova replied that the British Embassy had also raised the issue with her on March 23, but the authors of the letter had not mentioned the problem to her directly. She said she would speak with members of her Council and with Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin to see what had been done about the case. Trepashkin's case received a great deal of attention, but prison conditions were poor for many prisoners who were not as well known. Looking at human rights more broadly, Pamfilova noted that the GOR was considering eliminating jury trials, but she gave no indication that she expected early GOR action on that issue. ¶7. (U) Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia Thomas Adams has cleared this message. BURNS