U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 006812 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/20/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREL RS SUBJECT: U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM MEETS WITH FEDERAL REGISTRATION SERVICE DIRECTOR Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Kirk Augustine for reasons 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: On June 23 the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) met with Federal Registration Service (FRS) Director Sergey Movchan to discuss the expected impact of the recently adopted and not yet implemented NGO law on religious organizations. Movchan upheld the GOR's right to conduct inspections and even ban programs and transfers of money to religious organizations, but insisted that the FRS would follow strict and non-discriminatory procedures in implementing the law. He asserted that concerns over the amount of paperwork for annual reports were unfounded and that small organizations would not need additional personnel or expertise to complete the requirements. He proposed that the Embassy and FRS work together, holding roundtables or seminars with NGOs and religious organizations to review the law in detail to address questions and misunderstandings. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) USCIRF Chairman Michael Cromartie, Commissioner Richard Land, Executive Director Joseph Crapa, and staff members Tad Stahnke, David Dettoni, and Robert Blitt met June 23 with Sergey Movchan, Director of the Federal Registration Service; Viktor Korolev, head of the Department for Registration of Religious Organizations; and Aleksey Zhafyarov, head of the Department for Political Party, Public, Religious, and Other Organizations. . LAYING OUT THE FEDERAL REGISTRATION SERVICE ROLE -------------- --- ¶3. (C) President Putin created the FRS by decree on October 13, 2004, and it became operational on January 1, 2005. All central and regional registration functions that belonged to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) now belong to the FRS, Movchan said, although organizationally it remains under the umbrella of the MOJ. Movchan said the FRS complement of 30,000 employees work in departments ranging from registering property to providing notary services. The FRS plans to expand by 12,000 employees across all departments in 2007-2008. The department that registers public organizations, including NGOs and religious and political organizations, currently employs about 2000 people, but in October 2006 it will add 1750 workers. Employees working on registering public organizations are located throughout Russia, but Movchan noted that some regions are more active and have more FRS workers than others. He cited FRS weekly monitoring reports showing that since the new NGO law came into force, the FRS had received "only" 3000 new registration applications for all categories of public organizations, approximately ten percent of which were rejected. ¶4. (C) Stahnke mentioned that even with an additional 1750 workers, 3750 seemed like a low number to monitor an estimated 500,000 registered public organizations, especially taking into account the new requirement that foreign NGOs would have to submit reports every quarter. Movchan responded that many public organizations were not "live," and only an estimated 100,000 were actually active. He believed the FRS could handle the increased reporting requirements for foreign NGOs, but would re-examine staffing needs next year to see if another increase might be necessary. In terms of religious organizations, Movchan said that approximately 22,500 were registered, fifty-five percent of which belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, twenty percent were associated with Protestant denominations, and a little less than twenty percent were Islamic. Every day the FRS went through its list and found two or three "dead" organizations for removal. Next year, Movchan added, the FRS would be able to see more clearly how many public organizations were really active when they submit their annual reports pursuant to the new regulations. Saying that the government did not intend to impose overly strict control, Movchan claimed that the FRS would not read every annual report from cover to cover because it expected the reports to be fair and truthful. Instead, it would randomly select ones to be read. ¶5. (C) Asked if the FRS departments for property or legal registration assisted religious groups that were having problems with obtaining worship space, Movchan explained that when it came it to providing land or restituting property, roadblocks mainly lay with municipal governments; the FRS could support religious groups and assist them once they obtained property, but in general the FRS did not have jurisdiction to become involved in anything other than registration. He said the FRS was often in contact with Protestant Bishop Sergey Ryakhovskiy, head of the Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith, and that registration issues with Protestant groups were improving. . MOSCOW 00006812 002 OF 003 THE FRS AND THE NGO LAW -------------- ¶6. (C) On the controversial NGO law, Movchan emphasized that every government had the right to regulate NGOs in its own way, and the West was applying a double-standard to Russia. He noted that before the new NGO law was passed, there were two categories of public organizations -- non-commercial organizations, over which there had been practically no control, and public organizations, including religious groups, which had over ten years of experience with monitoring by authorities. This uneven situation had been corrected by the new law so that now all public organizations would be monitored. He added that the primary law for religious organizations remained the 1997 law on such organizations. Only a few provisions of the new NGO law applied to religious organization, and the FRS was limited to conducting inspections only in so far as they pertained to an organization's activities as stated in its charter. ¶7. (C) Movchan stressed that under the new NGO law, the FRS had the right to attend a public organization's events as an observer, but only "when the topic was common to all legal entities, for example, meetings dealing with the budget, obtaining property, or other operational matters." If the event concerned internal issues such as the goals, mission, or charter of the organization, the FRS could attend only if invited. (NOTE: Movchan had trouble explaining the distinction between the two when pressed for more details.) He observed that even ROC Metropolitans Kirill and Klement had expressed concern that the FRS would be able to participate in meetings of the Holy Synod and had needed reassurance that the FRS would not attend such events without an invitation. ¶8. (C) Movchan insisted that the implementing instructions governing the FRS's inspection procedures had been written but not yet approved by the MOJ or published in the official Rossisskaya Gazeta. According to the current draft of the implementing instructions, the Public Organization Department would be required to inform the FRS director in writing that an organization would be inspected, outlining which documents the inspection team wanted to examine and what events it planned to attend. The FRS would then send written notification at least one week prior to the visit to the designated organization. Movchan said the organization had the right to negotiate the dates of the visit if, for example, its leader was not in town or the documents were not available. When conducting an inspection, FRS representatives would be required to follow the Criminal and Administrative Codes and could not violate the rights of believers or religious services. Movchan said the FRS would write a report after the visit and send three copies to the head of the organization. If the organization did not agree with the inspection results, it could specify its objections on one of the copies and send it back to the FRS. The FRS would consider the objections, but if it still found violations, the organization would receive a written warning and be given three months to fix the problem. If the organization did not agree with the results of the inspection or the inspectors' behavior, they could write a complaint or initiate a law suit. Movchan gave the example of an FRS employee who violated the rights of believers during an inspection, was found culpable, and had his yearly bonus revoked as a result. . HANDLING OF FOREIGN-FUNDED NGOS -------------- ¶9. (C) When Stahnke asked about the article in the law regarding the FRS's right to ban programs and transfers of money to NGOs that received funding from foreign sources, Movchan responded that this particular article was aimed at protecting Russia's national interests and that the wording was taken almost directly from the 1981 U.N. resolution on how to combat the export of revolutions. Movchan said there were currently no implementing guidelines planned for handling the banning of programs or transfer of money; decisions would be based on court decisions and legal precedents. He added that once the FRS gained more experience with implementing this part of the NGO law, perhaps it would reconsider and develop normative acts to regulate banning. When deciding to ban a program or transfer of money, the FRS would have to give a specific reason for the ban, which the organization could appeal in the courts. Blitt mentioned that a court case might be prohibitively expensive for a small organization. Movchan responded that if the defendant was the government, there would be no cost to the organization, since regardless of the decision, there was no cost involved in suing the government. . MOSCOW 00006812 003 OF 003 CONCERNS OVER PAPERWORK EXAGGERATED -------------- ¶10. (C) Blitt mentioned that officials of some small religious organizations with whom the Commission had met had expressed concern over the amount of reporting they would be required to do under the new law. Many organizations thought that they could not afford lawyers and accountants to assist with the paperwork. Movchan responded that he did not think additional assistance was needed to fill out the forms. The FRS had not received any complaints from organizations that had registered since the law came into force in April. He mentioned that the FRS was cooperating with the Public Chamber to publish recommendations on how to fill out these forms. If there was a minor mistake or omission in the paperwork, Movchan continued, the FRS would not go after the organization. The law was new and daunting for both organizations and the FRS, so the FRS would not be particularly strict concerning the first annual report under the new regulations (in April 2007). Movchan said the goal was to force public organizations into financial transparency, and that those NGOs that were complaining about the amount of paperwork likely had something to hide. In particular, he said that foreign-funded NGOs would have to show how their grants were spent, and that since some foreign-funded NGOs were using their grants for salaries, rather than for the programs the grants were intended to subsidize, they did not like the idea of a more detailed report. ¶11. (C) Movchan concluded by proposing to continue the dialogue with the Embassy, NGOs, and religious organizations concerning details of the law's provisions and its implementation. He said he was willing to hold seminars or roundtables at the Embassy or another venue. BURNS