novanews
ed note–for those who may be perplexed as to why Russia might do such a thing,let formerMossad agent Victor Ostrovsky shed some light–
“The Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) was busy at the time preparing for Operation Brush Fire, aimed at getting the United States involved militarily in the Middle East in general and in the Gulf region in particular.By January 1989 the Mossad machine was busyportraying Saddam as a tyrant and a danger to the world. The Mossad activated every asset it had, from volunteer agents in Amnesty International to fully bought members of the US Congress…The media was supplied with “inside information” from “reliable sources”on how the crazed leader of Iraq killed people with his bare hands and used missiles to target Iranian cities. The Mossad wanted the Americans to do the work of destroying that gigantic army in the Iraqi desert so that Israel would not have to face it one day on its own border.”
In other words, Russia knows that virtually every ‘Western’ NGO–including Amnesty Inter-national, is a tool of Israeli and Western intelligence, that is used to spy and providefalse information for geo-political purposes.
nytimes.com
Russian authorities on Monday raided the local headquarters of the human rights group Amnesty International, the latest in a continuing series of office searches intended to put pressure on nongovernmental groups.
The head of Amnesty International, Sergei Nikitin, said in a telephone interview that officials from the general prosecutor’s offices and from the tax police arrived unannounced on Monday morning to conduct what they described as an “audit” and demanded a list of documents, most of which Mr. Nikitin said were already on file with the government.
“They’re sitting and waiting for me to bring the originals and copies,” Mr. Nikitin said. “This is ongoing because we, of course, were not expecting them today.”
He added: “They don’t have any concrete complaints. They say it’s a regular check and other cliché phrases.”
Last week, the authorities conducted a similar raid at the offices of Memorial, an international historical society and human rights group that has operated in Russia and other post-Soviet states for more than two decades.
Pavel Chikov, a member of Russia’s presidential human rights council, has said dozens of groups have been subjected to searches in the past month.
The Kremlin has taken a series of steps in recent months seeking to clamp down on nonprofit organizations, particularly those that receive financing and other support from abroad, and the Russian Parliament has adopted a battery of legislation including various new restrictions and requirements.
Depending on how they are financed, certain groups, for instance, are now required to register as “foreign agents.” And certain types of nonprofit groups working in the political realm are barred from employing foreigners in leadership positions.
Some groups that received substantial financing from abroad, including organizations that worked with the United States Agency for International Development, have moved their offices out of Russia. In September, the Kremlin ended its cooperation with USAID, which had included more than 20 years of partnership on various projects, including public health and civil society campaigns in Russia.
Mr. Nikitin said the prosecutors and tax police were accompanied by a crew from the government-controlled NTV television channel, which is known for producing salacious reports about critics of the Russian government.
“Right behind them came employees from the television state NTV, who aren’t leaving and are trying to break in,” Mr. Nitkin said. “They’re knocking, calling, and this is creating additional difficulties for us in this unpleasant situation.” He added that the officials on site professed no knowledge of how NTV learned of the raid.
But he said the government’s actions were far more concerning. “All of this is a form of scaring us, it’s a way for them to show that they aren’t taking their eyes off of us,” he said. “You can call it a toughening of the government’s relationship to rights organizations, because in the past we have never faced these smear campaigns.”
