Russia’s Foreign Agents Law: Civil Society at a Crossroads

The event, organised by Right Livelihood, focused on Russia’s so-called “Foreign Agents Law” which requires all non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funding and carrying out “political activities” to register as “foreign agents” with the government. The label comes with increased scrutiny and administrative hurdles, damage to organisations’ finances and reputation, and even the risk of liquidation.

Since its adoption, the law has been used by the authorities to target dissenting voices. Last December, Russia’s Supreme Court liquidated Memoria International, Russia’s most preeminent human rights organisation and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, due to non-compliance with the law. The day later, the member organisation Memorial Human Rights Center was also shut down by Moscow’s City Court.

The decision, which was condemned internationally, has been seen as a warning for other organisations included on the foreign agent list.

Among those are Ecodefense, one of Russia’s leading environmental organisations, co-chaired by 2021 Right Livelihood Laureate Vladimir Slivyak and OVD-Info, an independent human rights project. OVD-Info, which monitors civil and political rights and provides legal assistance to victims, has seen its website being blocked and was also required to delete its social media accounts in Russia.

“Being an activist in Russia today is very hard: there is an extremely high risk of imprisonment, there is a lack of resources and unfortunately, there’s a lack of support from society,” said Vladimir Slivyak. “At the same time, a lot of very important changes in society happened only because activists have been there and did their very hard work. Activism is what truly changes the world, but activism also needs to be protected and supported.”

0:00 Introduction by Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of Right Livelihood
3:19 Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders
13:04 Anna Dobrovolskaya, Executive Director of Memorial Human Rights Center
20:21 Vladimir Slivyak, Co-chairman of Ecodefense, 2021 Right Livelihood Laureate
29:46 Daniel Beilinson, Co-founder of OVD-Info
38:47 Elena Zhemkova, Executive Director of Memorial International, 2004 Right Livelihood Laureate
41:22 Interventions from the floor
45:06 Q&A