The Friedrich Naumann Foundation, affiliated with the FDP, has been declared an undesirable organization in Russia. The foundation announced this on Thursday in Potsdam, after the Ministry of Justice in Moscow updated the blacklist a day earlier. Classifying as an undesirable organization amounts to a work ban in Russia.
“Particularly for Russians, and especially for the foundation’s long-term partners, collaborating with an undesirable organization poses a great risk,” the Naumann Foundation board wrote in a statement. This move shows “that the Kremlin threatens the global, decisive commitment to civil and human rights. We will not be deterred by this and will remain committed to our mission.”
The Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom in memory of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in 2015, was also classified as undesirable, as was the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, which was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
The Russian government stopped the political education work of the party-affiliated German foundations SPD, CDU, Greens and FDP in Russia shortly after the attack on Ukraine in 2022 and revoked the registration of their offices in Moscow. Since then, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated with the Green Party, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, affiliated with the SPD, have also been declared undesirable organizations.
The pressure on Russian civil society is increasing
Under a 2015 Russian law, undesirable organizations must stop their activities in Russia, the Center for Eastern European and International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin explains. Accounts and properties are frozen and representative offices are closed. Russian citizens risk criminal prosecution if they contact these organizations. The register of the Russian Ministry of Justice currently includes almost 160 organizations from Germany, the US and other countries. The pressure on Russian civil society and its foreign contacts has increased even more since the start of the war.
Source: Krone
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