Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06MOSCOW6812
2006-06-27 07:05:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PINR PREL RS 
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VZCZCXRO1288
RR RUEHDBU
DE RUEHMO #6812/01 1780705
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 270705Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8148
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
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).

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