Foreign Agents in Russia - Doria

60
whose activities were send to a court for being eliminated and prohibited. The attorney specified
that in one case there were evidences of storaging and distribution of extremist material of the
Islamic Culture Research Foundation (Ria 2013c). The news article states that the suspected
violations were founded in accordance of the legal unscheduled audits against foreign agent NKOs;
the three organizations in question were not actually accused for violating the stipulations on
foreign agents but for acts of extremism. In this case no foreign agent political activity was
mentioned and the activities of extremism cannot be considered as synonymous to them in
discoursive function because extremism would lead NKOs into direct suspension instead of fines
and temporary suspension. On the other hand the extremist activities in the case of the Islamic
Culture Research Center resemble the political actions of alleged foreign agents: preservation and
the active activity of distribution of extremist material of organization receiving assessments from
abroad is the same description of violation as with the sociopolitical publications of Bok o Bok,
Golos and Levada. Thus an NKO acting as a foreign agent can be extremist but then it could not be
juridically registered as one but instead it would be disbanded. The discoursive connection is with
the normative definition but not their sanctions. However the transparency in activities of foreign
agents is officially argued important in order to find among others extremist features forming some
discoursive connection between these ideas (Ria 2012o).
Above I have pointed out how suggesting modifications of Russian legislation have been
counted as political action of foreign agents. In cases of human rights organizations it appears that
even managing the legal procedures in favor political activists can be considered as foreign agent
activity. The NKO law defines that the political action of foreign agent is direct action or financing.
The legal praxis however connected indirect political action to foreign agents in the cases of the
Public verdict foundation and Agora. Both of these organizations declare their mission to provide
legal assistance to victims of law enforcement. However they were connected into political
activities of foreign agents by their associations with political activists who had been victimized by
illegal activities of legal enforcement. Consequently almost all the human rights activities of the
"Public Verdict" were declared political because they were considered to intervene in the state
policy in the field of law enforcement. Also the analyzing of the legislation for the citizen rights and
compliance with the federal constitution can be considered political activity according to the
prosecutor. (Ria 2013t.) The legal case of Agora seemed close of being identical with the Public
verdict as the prosecutor's statement indicates:
"Осуществляемая на постоянной основе деятельность "Агоры" по содействию
политическим активистам в недопущении их к юридической ответственности
является участием в политических акциях и, следовательно, политической