27 May 2004 07:53
Ombudsman: Funding NGOs in Russia a point for debate
MOSCOW. May 27 (Interfax) - Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin said on Thursday that funding for
organizations that underlie civil society should be a subject for discussion.
"How can we achieve the development of a multitude of forms of support both for nongovernmental and for other
organizations so we can live in a free country?" Lukin said at an Interfax news conference in Moscow when asked to
comment on a passage on nongovernmental organizations in President Vladimir Putin's message to parliament on
Wednesday.
He said an alternative was needed.
"But what do we get if we eliminate the grants?" he went on.
"It's a very serious issue, which needs a serious discussion, in which I'm ready to take part,"
Lukin said.
Putin said in his message that financing from influential foreign funds had become a priority task for some of the
Russian nongovernmental organizations.
"As far as I can understand," Lukin said, "there are organizations that receive grants and are totally
dependent on them, and the role of foreign grants is rising seriously."
"Oligarchs? Small and medium-scale business, which is underdeveloped? We get monopolies at the federal, regional
and municipal levels. This leads not to the creation of a civil society but to something else."
Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles, in answering the same question, said there had been
very many important points in Putin's message as regards civil rights and democracy.
Gil-Robles said he saw Putin's statements as a defense of civil society and democracy.
Gil-Robles said nongovernmental organizations were the basic element of civil society. [RU EUROPE EEU EMRG POL DIP]
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[Interfax] |
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