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


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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