NCFD General Prosecutor's Office asks Ministry of Justice to check NCOs in Chechnya and Ingushetia for extremism

Alexei Tsukanov, Chief of the Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), urged the Russian Ministry of Justice to check, how non-commercial organizations (NCOs) in Chechnya and Ingushetia spent money received from abroad. Representatives of the NCOs in Chechnya and Ingushetia state that they do not fear of inspections of supervisory agencies.

Alexei Tsukanov: Ministry of Justice should check how NCOs spend money received from abroad

"Only last year, in the Chechen Republic, the NCOs received 97 million roubles of foreign funds, in Ingushetia - more than 91 million roubles. We should know how the funds are being spent," stated Alexei Tsukanov at the coordination meeting at the Chief Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the Stavropol Territory, held on September 24.

He believes that such a check is necessary, including a check to eliminate extremist activities in organizations, involved in religious activities.

In his turn, Alexander Konovalov, Minister of Justice, reported that the Ministry of Justice did not have complete information on financing of non-profit organizations in Russia.

"Moreover, in many cases, public activities are not always carried out in accordance with the law and they are financed without creating a legal entity at all. Actually, we do not have legal capacity to assess activities of such groups, since they wilfully do not want to be registered as a non-profit organization," Alexander Konovalov has noted.

According to him, due to changes in the legislation on the status of a foreign agent, the laws have been changed for control over financial flows; and at present, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (the "Rosfinmonitoring") will have more opportunities and responsibilities to control the movement of funds.

"We speak of declaration of funds, a specific form of control. We will use the information, and as a result, we will implement specific forms of response, ranging from warning to appeal to the court for liquidation of an organization," the Minister of Justice has added.

According to the information of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation in North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), announced at the meeting, in the territory of the region, 1800 NCOs have been registered, including more than 20 NCOs, involved in religious activities, the "Interfax" reports.

Staff members of the office of Alexander Khloponin, Plenipotentiary Envoy of Russian President in North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), reported that financial operations of NCOs are not under control. And a staff member of the "Rosfinmonitoring" in the NCFD said that his agency can check an NCO, but only at the request of law enforcement agencies. However, he did not clarify whether they received such requests, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

NCOs in Chechnya and Ingushetia are not afraid of inspections of supervisory agencies

Representatives of non-profit organizations in Chechnya and Ingushetia financed from abroad state that they do not fear of checks of the supervisory agencies with regard to spending of money and refute any suspicion of aiding extremism.

Zhabrail Ozdoev, Ombudsman in Ingushetia, believes that in the territory of the republic, there are no religious organizations, financed from abroad.

"Here, the organizations are mainly engaged in providing free legal assistance, they provide lawyers, publish brochures, and they should spend their money in accordance with organization's charter," Zhabrail Ozdoev said.

This is also confirmed by Magomed Mutsolgov, the leader of the human rights organization "Mashr", which operates in Ingushetia.

"We spend our money on legal assistance; however, we are not financed from abroad. The authorities and law enforcement agencies themselves would better report, how they spend their money, and it would be more interesting for people; and, meanwhile, the authorities give no rise to claims and suspicions, if they keep the money abroad," Magomed Mutsolgov stated.

The representative of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Ingushetia said: "All expenses are being controlled by the Moscow's head office. We spend money for the office maintenance, legal assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and we help relatives of suspected members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) to find out their whereabouts after their detention," said the representative of the organization.

A representative of one of NCOs, operating in Chechnya, believes that an inspection of the sources of financing of NCOs "will make no harm".

"In Chechnya, activities of all organizations, including non-profit ones, have maximum transparency. In the region, NCOs always got special attention, sometimes biased. Typically, foreign grantors give money for projects, aimed at prevention of corruption, small business development, and legal protection of the population," the source said.

He has also emphasized that not all organizations are working out of good intentions, and it is possible that some organizations may at first sight work for good aims hide secret strategic interests inside. "However, I doubt that there are such organizations in Chechnya," the RIA "Novosti" quotes the source as saying.

Rasul Kadiev: there will be more "high traitors" in Northern Caucasus

In his online diary in the "Live Journal", Rasul Kadiev, Dagestani lawyer and blogger, writes that the State Duma of the Russian Federation may turn into "high traitors" many staff members of the media, bloggers and experts, engaged in dealing with the problems of combating terrorism and the protection of human rights in Northern Caucasus.

The Dagestani lawyer feels such a concern because of the fact that the State Duma of the Russian Federation has adopted in the first reading a draft law that expands the concept of "high treason" in Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the regulations of livejournal.com, facebook.com, and twitter.com provide that all information can be transferred by owners of the service to third persons.

"That is, it is enough for a Caucasian blogger to load a photo or video of a tank column in the region of the Caucasus Mountains to be summoned to FSB investigator for the transfer of the data, constituting a state secret, to the USA," Rasul Kadiev notes.

According to him, in the event if the amendment to Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is adopted, then the scientists, experts on Northern Caucasus, and experts in the sphere of human rights and combating terrorism will face the most difficult situation. "The fact is that the revised Article 275 of the Criminal Code will not allow to be defended at the trial by the argument that the information was obtained from open sources," Rasul Kadiev explains.

He quotes Alexei Filatov, retired FSB Colonel, Vice President of the international organization of veterans of the "Alpha" group, who said in his interview to the "Echo of Moscow" that "if someone specifically processes and organizes a large volume of information in open source, then those separate data in the open field of mass media can present a military secret."