MOSCOW, July 7 (RAPSI) - The Federation Council has received proposals to add about 60 organizations, which are deemed undesirable in Russia, to a blacklist of foreign NGOs, according to Konstantin Kosachyov, Head of the International Committee of the Federation Council.
As stated in the Federation Council’s draft resolution, the blacklist includes “a number of foreign and international non-governmental organizations known for their anti-Russian sentiments.” The blacklist could potentially restrict their work in the country according to Russian law.
Kosachyov said that the Federation Council received most of the information on the “undesirable” NGOs from the Russian regions. “We are also working closely with Russian NGOs, civil society, the Civic Chamber and the Presidential Council,” he said.
Kosachyov stressed that out of 12 organizations on the list, seven “are in one way or the other related to the US,” two are related to Poland and two to Ukraine.
Earlier, a RIA Novosti source in the upper house of the parliament said that among the NGOs on the blacklist are the Open Society Foundations (Soros Foundation), the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the MacArthur Foundation, Freedom House, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Education for Democracy Foundation, the East European Democratic Center, the Ukrainian World Congress, the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council and the Crimean Human Rights Field Mission.