{"id":9242,"date":"2021-01-16T15:35:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T15:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=150928"},"modified":"2021-01-16T15:35:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T15:35:08","slug":"council-of-europe-urges-russia-to-explain-ngo-designation-as-undesirable-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/16\/council-of-europe-urges-russia-to-explain-ngo-designation-as-undesirable-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Council Of Europe Urges Russia To Explain NGO Designation As ‘Undesirable’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The head of the Council of Europe has expressed \u201cgreat concern\u201d after the Association of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe was added to the list of \u201cundesirable\u201d organizations in Russia.<\/p>\n

In a letter dated January 14 and obtained by RFE\/RL,<\/a> Council of Europe Secretary-General Marija Pejcinovic Buric asked Moscow to clarify \u201cthe circumstances\u201d that led to the decision, which she called \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot stress enough how problematic is the notion that an organization such as the Association of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe, closely linked to our organization and uniting schools of political studies, aiming to organize civic education activities based on the Council of Europe values and principles, would represent a threat\u201d to a Council of Europe member state, reads the letter, addressed to Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Prosecutor-General’s Office announced in December 2020 it had declared the Strasbourg-based Association of Schools of Political Studies as \u201cundesirable,\u201d requiring the Justice Ministry to blacklist the organization.<\/p>\n

A 2015 law allows prosecutors to shut down “undesirable” organizations if they are deemed to be a threat to Russia’s national interests.<\/p>\n

In a statement on January 6, the two co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for the monitoring of Russia “deplored” the decision to place the Association of Schools of Political Studies on the Russian list of “undesirable” organizations.<\/p>\n

“Russia\u2019s 2015 law on ‘undesirable organizations’ has been severely criticized by the international community, including the Council of Europe, for its violations of the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, its arbitrariness, and the wide discretionary powers granted to the prosecutor-general,” Axel Schafer and Ria Oomen-Ruijten said in a statement.<\/a><\/p>\n

Human rights groups have accused Russia of using legislation governing NGOs to silence organizations that have a diverging view from the authorities and sanction their members, increasingly restricting space for civic activity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of the Council of Europe has expressed \u201cgreat concern\u201d after the Association of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe was added to the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,24,341],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9243,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9242\/revisions\/9243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}