Russian opposition supporters gathered on 6 May to protest against Vladimir Putin and demanded the release of political prisoners. Photo: Elena Ignatyeva / Demotix

An organisation behind a nature reserve dedicated to the protection of Russia’s cranes has been ordered to register as “a foreign agent” under the country’s non-governmental organisation law. The case highlights how arbitrary implementation is chilling free expression in the country, Andrei Aliaksandrau reports.

The law was enacted by Russia’s Duma and signed by President Vladimir Putin in July 2012.  It requires NGOs receiving international funding to register with the government as a “foreign agent” and include that phrase in material they produce. The law also subjects registered NGOs to undergo financial audits and file twice-yearly reports on activities. Failure to comply leaves NGOs and staffers open to fines and possible prison time. The Putin government maintains that the law is intended to reduce external meddling in Russian politics, but opposition activists say that it is being used to suppress dissent.

The Muraviovka Park for Sustainable Nature Management — a non-profit studying the seven species of Russian cranes — was notified that it had to register under the law since it has received funding from outside Russia as part of several international environmental projects.  But Russian ecologists were surprised to learn the park is “a foreign agent” as politics has never been on their agenda.

This isn’t the first time cranes have become part of a political drama. In September 2012, Putin took to the air in a motorised hang glider to lead Siberian cranes on migration. But the current ruffling of feathers exposes the broad and vague definitions — like “political activity” — embedded in the foreign-agent law that allow arbitrary implementation.

Some take the warnings issued to Muraviovka Park and at least 39 other Russian NGOs as a sign that Russian authorities are continuing to wage a war against civil society.

The list of NGOs affected includes human rights groups, environmental organisations — and even an association of assisting cystic fibrosis patients. Many of the warnings stem from provisions in the organisations’ charters that suggest the NGO can represent their members at state bodies. These clauses are being interpreted as involvement in political activities by the government.

Cases have been already compiled against five NGOs. One of them, Golos (“Voice” or “Vote”), was found guilty of non-compliance with the law. The court decided it is a “foreign agent”, but failed to register itself as one. Golos was fined 300,000 roubles (about £6,250) and its leader Liliya Shibanova was fined 100,000 roubles (about £2,100).

The organisation denies the charges. It says staffers are not involved in political activity and  it has not received foreign funding. Golos was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Freedom Prize by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, but returned the prize money. The association said it is going to appeal the court’s decision.

The foreign agents law is just one example of Russian legislative acts labelled as repressive by critics and free expression activists since Putin returned to the presidency. Laws have been enacted that create black lists of web sites dangerous to children, ban “propaganda of homosexuality”, recriminalise libel and restrict freedom of assembly.

Index and other observers note that the repressive legal framework seems to be the Putin regime’s response to growing voices of dissent to his autocratic rule. But civic activists have also faced physical violence as authorities in different regions act with impunity — taking their cue from Moscow’s increasing restrictions on free expression.

On 29 April police and private guards used force while dispersing local people protesting plans to build a power station in the town of Kudepsta, near Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. On 13 May officers of Patrol, a private security firm, severely beat members of a group protesting an allegedly illegal nickel mine near the city of Voronezh. One of the protesters was beaten unconscious and two more had their sculls broken. Police were present and did not intervene, according to activists.

Civil society in Russia is facing hard times — and expresses little optimism about the future.

“By about the end of the autumn there won’t remain a single independent NGO left in our country,” is a sad prediction made by Elena Panfilova, the head of Centre Transparency International – Russia, on her Facebook account. “In this NGOs issue, in the end there is a choice for everyone to make: either to close down one’s own organisation or to be prosecuted and face up to two years in prison. There are no other variants. Not for anyone. I think that not everyone understands this, but this is the bottom line.”

No word on what the cranes plan to do to comply with the law. Perhaps Putin can take to the air to show them the way to freedom.

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Alexander Lukashenko turns up to cast his vote in Belarus’s parliamentary election, accompanied by his son Nikolay

Last Sunday the people of Belarus learnt the new composition of the lower chamber of its parliament. But you can’t really say that members of the parliament were elected. Most observers say that there are no genuine elections in Belarus, and that the parliament is insignificant because the power of the president is almost complete. A large part of the population shares that view.

The Belarus authorities claim that elections in Belarus are transparent. Journalists joke that they are so transparent that they are almost invisible. Although the Central Election Commission claimed that 72.3 per cent of voters went to the polling stations, independent observers say that turnout was no more than 35-40 per cent. The authorities falsified the turnout to give the elections the veneer of legitimacy.

There are no surprises in the composition of the new parliament. Most of the democratic opposition boycotted the election in different ways. Some parties — European Belarus, the Christian Democrats and the Belarusian Movement — announced from the start that they were not participating in the farce. Others, including the United Civil Party and the Belarus National Front, decided to get candidates registered to give themselves a platform but later withdrew,  denouncing the election as a fraud. Some opposition parties ran candidates all the way through to election day — but predictably without any success.

The lack of unity of approach among the opposition was criticised by civil society groups. “All of the opposition was really in favour of a boycott,” said Uladzimir Matskevich, chair of the coordination committee of the National Civil Society Forum.  “Even those people who called for participating in the campaign until the bitter end did so only in order to use the opportunity for publicity. So why not agree about a common strategy from the very beginning?”

The disunity of the opposition meant that it failed to send a clear message to voters. If ordinary people boycotted the election it had little to do with activities of oppositional groups and a lot to do with a general sense that the National Assembly has no real influence because of the overwhelming power of the president.

“We don’t have public politics in Belarus,” said Zhanna Litivina, chair of the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ). “Even when we had election debates on TV, it was obvious the candidates themselves did not really care about them.”

A BAJ analysis of election media coverage shows that the state media, which are dominant in the country, misrepresented the campaign, focusing on the Central Election Commission rather than candidates or their programmes. There were cases of direct censorship as state TV refused to broadcast candidates’ statements. Debates were never live but always pre-recorded. No appeal for a boycott of the elections ever appeared in the state media.

The official explanation from Lidzija Yarmoshyna, the CEC chair, was that airtime was dedicated “to campaigning, not boycotting”. According to the chair of the United Civil Party, Anatol Labiedzka, 32 addresses by the party’s candidates were not broadcast and state-owned papers refused to print 11 of its candidates programmes.

“The purpose of the bleak campaign coverage and the censorship of the candidates’ media appearances was to undermine electoral competition and depoliticise the elections,” the BAJ report (pdf) states.

There were several instances of physical attacks and detentions of journalists. The worst was on 18 September, when seven journalists (Aliaksandr Barazenka, Sergei Grits, Vasil Fiadosenka, Tatsiana Ziankovich, Vasil Padabed, Dzmitry Rudakou and Aliaxey Akulau) who covered a peaceful street performance of opposition in Minsk were seized; Grits, an Associated Press photographer, received a serious facial injury during the attack. This was a clear and gross violation of journalists’ rights, in direct contravention of the law that makes it a criminal offence to interfere with journalistic activities. But few expect that officials will investigate the case and call those responsible for the attack to legal account.

Opposition websites reported that they were temporarily blocked during election day, and foreign journalists were denied visas to cover the elections — among them Swedish reporters Stefan Borg, Erik Von Platen and Gustaf Andersson and German reporters Anne Gelinek and Gesine Dornblüth. [Editors note: Von Platen and Andersson were eventually granted visas after initially being refused]

Many of the formal procedures for democratic elections are in place in Belarus — but genuinely free elections are not simply about formal procedures: they are about discussion of different political programmes. In democracies, free media provide a public platform for debate. In an authoritarian state like Belarus, where media freedom is severely restricted, elections can never be free. The electoral code can be amended, observers can be allowed to see the vote count, the ballot boxes can be transparent – but if there is no freedom of the media, none of this counts for anything.

 Andrei Aliaksandrau is the Belarus and OSCE Programme Officer at Index on Censorship

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If he had climbed the tree for any other reason, he might have faced a minor administrative trial and got away with a fine. But a red and white flag, once a national symbol and now an oppositional hallmark so much hated by the authoritarian government, cost Kavalenka a criminal conviction and a three-year suspended sentence.

On 19 December 2011, on the first anniversary of Belarus’s controversial presidential elections, Kavalenka was detained again, accused of violating the probation rules. Two months later the judge announced the verdict: 25 months in prison.

Kavalenka considers his conviction to be politically motivated. In protest against his imprisonment he went on hunger strike for almost half a year, with only two breaks. He lost nearly 40 kilograms. His family and friends were worried for his life, let alone his health. According to his wife, Alena, who was able to meet her husband several times during his imprisonment, Kavalenka has serious health problems. In addition, she reported he faced physical torture and psychological pressure behind bars.

Many voices inside and outside Belarus and have demanded that the Belarusian authorities release Siarhei Kavalenka together with all other political prisoners.

But the government of Belarus remains deaf to these appeals. Kavalenka has been refused civil medical assistance and is treated by prison doctors. In April, the authorities started force feeding him to keep him alive.

“The situation itself is beyond the legal framework, because Siarhei Kavalenka is sentenced illegally,” Uladzimir Labkovich, Belarusian human rights defender and lawyer, said. “He is a victim of the reprisal imposed on him by the authorities.”

Kavalenka ended his hunger strike at the end of May, but he is not giving up his fight, and nor are his family and friends. His wife, other relatives and Belarusian civil society activists have been detained several times after staging public actions of solidarity; some of them have been beaten by the police. At the moment Alena Kavalenka, Siarhei’s cousin Kanstantsin, and activist Alena Semenchukova are awaiting court hearings for chalking “Freedom to Siarhei Kavalenka!” on the pavement in front of the court building in Vitsebsk.

“He is very weak physically, but has no access to quality medical help,” Alena Kavalenka told Radio Liberty after she met her husband in prison. “I don’t know why he is being exterminated for his love for his motherland.”

Andrei Aliaksandrau is the former vice-chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists

You can write a letter of support to Siarhei Kavalenka to his prison. The address is: PK No. 19, 3 km, Slauharadskaja shasha, Mahiliou, 213030, Belarus (In Belarusian: Каваленка Сяргей, 213030, г. Магілёў, Слаўгарадзкая шаша, 3 км, ПК №19)

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Last weekend was a real holiday for some Belarusians as the Orthodox Easter was marked with truly good news of the release of two political prisoners. Andrei Sannikov, a former presidential candidate, and one of his main campaign aides, Dzmitry Bandarenka, stepped out of the jails they had been kept in for 16 months each. The long-awaited deep breaths of freedom, although still limited, for the opposition activists themselves, their families and friends were welcomed by all democratically-minded Belarusians and their supporters around the world.

Still, the good news does not sparkle a lot of hope for the country as a whole. Despite Sannikov and Bandarenka now being on the other side of jail bars, Belarus is still far away from freedom.

Two men of courage and civic stand freed, families re-united: no doubt the event is positive and encouraging. But — and there is no doubt about this either — it does not highlight any change of the situation inside Belarus, nor of the usual habits of the Belarusian authorities that have a long “tradition” of trading political prisoners to the West for economic benefits.

According to Belarusian human rights defenders, 13 more political prisoners are still behind bars in the country, including one more former presidential candidate, Mikalay Statkevich, and one of the leading human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Ales Bialiatski.

Listen to Index’s Mike Harris and Belarus Free Theatre’s Natalia Koliada discuss Sannikov’s release on the BBC’s The World Tonight here (at 27 minutes)

Sannikov and Bandarenka are still considered to be criminals. Officially they were freed as the result of a pardon they had asked President Aleksandr Lukashenko for. Sannikov told journalists on Monday he will spend eight more years under police supervision. His wife, well-known Belarusian journalist Irina Khalip, was not able to meet her husband when he arrived at Minsk train station Sunday night: according to her own sentence received after the anti-government protests of 19 December 2010, she must obey a daily curfew of 10pm. So, freedom in Belarus is quite a relative notion.

Quite a number of Belarusian analysts have pointed out that the release of Sannikov and Bandarenka was the result of solidarity actions within the country’s civil society, campaigning led by international organisations, and European Union sanctions (namely a travel ban for Belarusian officials responsible for human rights violations and pointed economic restrictions against some enterprises considered to be “purses of the regime”). But there is for sure one more component of this equation, which is Russia.

It is clear that the release of the two political prisoners is a kind of invitation to the EU to normalise its relationship with Belarus. It is clearly a signal to Brussels, but there is no real intention of change behind it: just the same old game.

President Lukashenko’s simple — yet quite successful — strategy is to balance between Russia and the EU, and try to gain economic benefits (like loans or cheap gas prices) by making use of the geopolitical contradictions between them. Worsening of relations with Moscow once it gets tired of subsidising Lukashenko’s ineffective economy and his pathological unwillingness to stick to his promises usually leads to a change in anti-Western rhetoric and simulation of dialogue attempts with the EU.

This is exactly the case now. Lukashenko seems to lose the momentum of unconditional support from Kremlin as its “old new” leader Vladimir Putin gets very clear about the rules of the game. Russia clearly keeps away from backing Lukashenko in his “diplomatic war” with Europe, and it is obvious that the conflict with Brussels reached its climax with all EU ambassadors leaving Minsk at the end of February. The lack of support from his eastern neighbour makes Lukashenko seek attempts to normalise his relations with Europe — well, to the extent his own understanding of “normalisation” goes. Sannikov and Bandarenka’s release is a test of how the EU will react. For the same “testing” purposes the Belarusian President also postponed his official annual address to the Parliament, previously planned for 19 April. The official reason was Lukashenko’s alleged “disagreement with excessively harsh measures of reaction to the problems in relations of Belarus with its partners.”

Yet, Europe shows quite a strong stance on this situation. The Chairman of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, and EU Commissioner, Stefan Fule, all welcomed Sannikov and Bandarenka’s release. But they pointed out it is only the first step, as all the political prisoners must be released and also rehabilitated, with a clear understanding the authorities of Belarus can fulfil the former, but will never agree on the latter.

The diplomatic “dance” to follow is surely one Lukashenko will try to lead. And it will be the real test of the consistency of the EU policy and the firmness of its position — with a clear temptation of declaring “a breakthrough to a dialogue” too soon, and a threat of the situation to worsen again if the response is too disengaging. Finding the right balance is a tricky mission — but one gets additional advantage, when one’s counterpart is trying hard to get his balance right as well, both in political sense and on accounting sheets of struggling budget.

Then there is the most important component of the equation. Andrei Dmitriev, one of the leaders of Tell the Truth campaign and a former political prisoner himself, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday that he was surprised so few people came to meet Sannikov in Minsk: half of the small crowd that gathered in front of the train station on Sunday night were journalists. Almost no leaders of other oppositional forces were there to great their colleague. The opposition is still recovering from the severe crackdown after December 2010 with continuous nightmare of searches, interrogations, courts and torture that followed. It surely needs to unite forces and summon their strengths to prove the regime is wrong thinking the democratic movement of Belarus is crashed. The upcoming Parliamentary election campaign scheduled for 2012 will be a good time for that.

Just let the weekend smiles of Andrei Sannikov’s family give us some hope.

Andrei Aliaksandrau is the vice chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists

Index is campaigning with the Belarus Committee to liberate the 13 remaining political prisoners in Europe’s last dictatorship. Find out more here.

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