Three More Russian NGOs Branded ‘Foreign Agents’

The Prosecutor General’s Office has branded three more Russian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as “foreign agents” saying they were financed from abroad, Izvestia daily reported on Wednesday. The latest in a series of NGOs to be listed as foreign agents are the Moscow School of Political Studies, the Urals human rights group and the Public Verdict human rights foundation. “We have discovered three organizations, which within the period from December last year and until February and March this year received considerable sums of money from foreign sources, first of all from US sources,” the daily cited a source in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Russia passed a law last November requiring all NGOs engaged in political activity, and receiving finance from abroad, to register as a "foreign agent." That term has overtones of spying and indeed treason to many Russians.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130508/181020677/Three-More-Russian-NGOs-Branded-Foreign-Agents---Report.html

Russia's Only Independent Pollster Resists 'Foreign Agent' Tag

Russia's only independent pollster could be forced to register as a foreign agent under a law which President Vladimir Putin's critics say is designed to tighten controls on groups that do not toe the official line. Some critics saw the possibility of Levada joining human rights groups on the list of "foreign agents" as evidence that Putin is clamping down on civil rights even while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's is in Moscow for talks. Prosecutors say Levada had received 3.9 million roubles ($125,400) between December 26, 2012 and March 24 this year from Italy, the United States, Britain, Poland and South Korea. Levada's director, Lev Gudkov, said authorities had started looking into Levada in mid-April, when it published a poll saying a majority of Russians agreed with the opposition's depiction of Putin's ruling party as "swindlers and thieves". "We will never declare that we are foreign agents," Gudkov said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/us-russia-levada-idUSBRE9460KX20130507?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Russian Bird Support Group Branded 'Foreign Agent'

An ecological support group in Russia running a protected site for cranes has been branded as a "foreign agent" by Russian prosecutors - the latest in a series of NGOs to be listed as such by the authorities. "Crane Homeland," set up in the far east Amur Region, runs a protected park for rare cranes and storks, and is run by volunteers, naturalists, and staff from Moscow State University's biology department, according to its website. Russia passed a law last November requiring all NGOs engaged in political activity, and receiving finance from abroad, to register as a "foreign agent." That term has overtones of spying and indeed treason to many Russians. The group says it is "outraged" that its members have been branded "foreign agents." Set up by Russian ornithologist Sergei Smirensky, it says it has no other activity than running a small reserve protecting rare birds from forest fires and poachers, and running ecological awareness groups for children. The group says it cannot put up with the burden of being classed as a foreign agent, which incurs considerable extra supervision from government and time-consuming red-tape for disclosure of funding and reporting on activities. Crane Homeland says it gets some funding from the International Crane Foundation.

http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20130503/180967677.html

Hitman Tunnels Out of Moscow Prison with Spoon

An inmate charged with two counts of murder has escaped from one of Russia’s oldest and most famous detention centers through a hole in the ceiling. The escapee may have only used a spoon in his jailbreak, a police source said. Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina prison has seen just a handful of escapes in its history. Oleg Topalov, a 33-year-old from Sochi, may have outdone them all in sheer effortlessness: He allegedly used only a piece of tableware to escape. Early Tuesday morning, the prison’s guards discovered that Topalov, an inmate in an eight-person cell, was missing. Accused of two murders and illegal arms trafficking, Topalov was characterized as “mentally abnormal and liable to escape” by the prison staff. Having been detained for a year and a half, he was scheduled to appear in court soon, but made his escape before the hearings could begin. According to Federal Penitentiary Service spokesperson Sergey Tsygankov, Topalov “expanded the vent of an air-shaft with the help of some item.” He then climbed up the vent to the prison’s roof, and left the facility undetected.

http://rt.com/news/moscow-prison-spoon-escape-949/ (video)
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/convicted-murderer-escapes-moscow-jail/479677.html


UPDATE: Topalov arrested
http://www.1tv.ru/news/crime/232546

Thousands Rally In Russia for Political Prisoners

Thousands of people attended an opposition rally in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square. The Bolotnaya rally comes on the first anniversary of a mass antigovernment protest that ended in riots and the arrests of hundreds of demonstrators protesting Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. The rally is calling for the release of over two dozen protesters detained since last year. Police say around 8,000 protesters attended Monday’s sanctioned event called ‘For Freedom!’ Organizers expected up to 30,000 to turn up for the meeting. Opposition leaders, including anti-corruption blogger Aleksey Navalny, co-chairman of Parnas party Boris Nemtsov and leader of democratic party Yabloko Sergey Mitrokhin, addressed the crowd from a stage assembled on top of a truck. They demanded to stop “repressions,” to release “political prisoners,” and to ban the same person from being elected president more than twice. Russia’s current constitution states that the same person cannot be elected head of state “for more than two terms running.”

http://www.rferl.org/media/photogallery/24978494.html
http://rt.com/news/bolotnaya-opposition-rally-protest-879/
http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/activism/m.214447.html#media-214449 (video)

Ireland Backs Down from Sanctioning Russian Officials

An Irish parliamentary committee on foreign affairs has backed down from sanctioning Russian officials implicated in rights abuse following a warning that it could jeopardize a bilateral adoption agreement. The committee unanimously passed a resolution urging the Irish government to express concern over the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow pretrial detention center in 2009. But it dropped its earlier plans to call for an EU-wide blacklist on officials implicated in the case, similar to the one passed in the United States last year. The Russian Embassy in Dublin said in March the blacklist could “have a negative influence” on the pending adoption agreement, though it later denied making a direct link between the two issues. Pat Breen, chairman of the Irish parliamentary committee, dismissed allegations that the Russian stance amounted to blackmail, while Senator Jim Walsh, who proposed the blacklist, called the resolution a “compromise.” Some 1,500 Russian children have been adopted by Irish citizens since the early 1990s.

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20130502/267254423.html

Georgian Patriarch Calls to Ban Abortion

Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II called on the Georgian authorities to pass legislation banning abortion in the country. As Ilia II stated in his Easter epistle, the difficult demographic situation in the country makes this necessary. "It needs to be done in the short term, although of course there must be some exceptional cases. The media must prepare the population for a positive perception of the initiative, which will allow for a positive attitude in the country toward large families and negative attitudes towards abortion," the patriarch said. According to Ilia II, 36,000 abortions are performed in Georgia annually, although this is just the official figures, and in fact there are many more abortions performed. He also noted an average of 14,000 babies are stillborn in Georgia every year.

http://en.trend.az/regions/scaucasus/georgia/2147076.html

Tajikistan Jams Russian Radio Station

Tajikistan authorities began to jam the signal of Russian radio station Zvezda broadcast from the Russian military base in Dushanbe. Tajik Communication Agency spokesman Samad Khikmatov said that the signal covered all Dushanbe and the station had no official permission to broadcast in Tajikistan. "We took measures to jam the signal covering all Dushanbe territory," the official explained.

http://ria.ru/society/20130503/935728768.html

Turkmen President Falls Off Horse after Winning $11 Mln

Turkmenistan’s president, a known horse enthusiast, won US$11 million by coming first in a race organized to celebrate domestic horse breeding. The triumph was marred by a fall right after the finish line, news which the government tried to suppress. Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov took part in last week’s Day of the Turkmen Racehorse by taking to the saddle and competing with six other riders. The president chose a horse of his favorite Akhal-Teke breed to be pitted against other breeds. All the riders in the race were at least 30 years old and were competing for a prize fund provided by the owners of the horses. The president, 55, and his racehorse Berkarar, reached the finish line less than a second ahead of the second-placed jockey. Skeptics were quick to accuse organizers of fixing the race. The victory however proved to be costly for the Turkmen leader. Just meters after the finish line his horse apparently stumbled, and Berdymukhamedov dived over its head and fell face-first into the turf. The development apparently caused several tense minutes for his security staff and cabinet members, who rushed on to the racetrack in their dozens. An ambulance arrived minutes later and took the president away. However about an hour later he was in good enough shape to appear at the event once more, so apparently the fall didn’t cause any serious injuries. Witnesses however say Berdymukhamedov was restrained in his movements as he waved to the spectators of the race day. Local media in the Central Asian country didn’t mention the fall while reporting the president’s victory, stopping the footage as he crossed the finish line. However the uncut version quickly leaked to the internet. Some online media said the footage surfaced despite attempts by security personnel to confiscate all copies made by the hundreds of people attending the event.

http://rt.com/news/turkmenistan-president-fall-horse-706/