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The move comes amid mounting criticism from activists that Moscow is cracking down on NGOs with repressive laws and a wave of raids on their offices by prosecutors.
Golos (Voice), a group that monitors Russian elections for violations, and its director Liliya Shibanova, were ordered to pay the fine by Moscow’s Presnensky district court for failing to register as a “foreign agent” as required by new legislation.
The organisation denied the label applied to them and said it would appeal the ruling.
The Russian parliament last year passed a law obliging all NGOs who receive money from abroad and engage in political activity to register as foreign agents.
During his annual televised question-and-answer session yesterday, Putin denied he was persecuting NGOs.
“Let them say, where they got the money, how much money, and how they spent it! What’s wrong with that? In the United States such law has been working since 1938,” he said.
The court based its ruling against Golos on information that it had received money as part of a human rights prize from Norway. But the group tried to prove in court that they refused to take the money, part of the Andrei Sakharov Freedom prize.
The money was returned, and the Norwegian group apologised for their mistake, he added in a statement sent out by the Agora association of lawyers.
But the judge ruled that Golos was acting as a “foreign agent” without declaring itself as such, and sentenced it to a fine of US$10 000. — AFP.
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